


I'm Not A Fish Keith

by Mysteriousapplejuice



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Cryptids, Gender-Neutral Pronouns for Pidge | Katie Holt, Keith centric, M/M, Mentions of Sex, Pidge and Keith share an apartment, Pidge is also ace, Shiro is a doctor, Shiro is bi, The rest of the characters sexualities/genders are currently open to intepretation, Unfortunately there are memes in this, University AU, keith and shiro are adoptive brothers, keith is gay, lance is bi, large section of Keith in denial, mentions of misgendering, pidge is agender, semi-pining Keith, serious accidents (I'll put more detail on the chapters that include that), tags will be updated as story progresses, there is also swearing but nothing super bad, there will be some mentions of depression, this is due to who I am as a person
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-11
Updated: 2017-03-11
Packaged: 2018-09-07 20:50:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 22
Words: 39,948
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8815837
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mysteriousapplejuice/pseuds/Mysteriousapplejuice
Summary: In which Keith is convinced that the cute boy that is more elusive than moth-man is the new cryptid in town, and Pidge and Shiro are bought along for the ride. Meanwhile Lance has many secrets thats he's willing to share, but only if the boy with the (arguable) mullet asks for his number first.





	1. In which Keith's body decided enough was enough

Looking back on it, Keith’s only explanation for the series of events was the fact that he had been awake for close to thirty-two hours, had drank a combination of coffee and red bull and the mixture of sleep deprivation and caffeine was making him vividly hallucinate waves on the ceiling. 

The waves were oddly a granulated yellow, like the actual ceiling of the lecture hall, but had the motion of the sea. Or at least to it did to Keith’s memory. The last time he had actually been to a beach was several years ago in a misguided attempt to find the Fish-man, but the subsequent searing red sunburn spread across his cheeks and shoulders led him to declare Fish-man a lost cause and refocus on the elusive Moth-man. 

Regardless to say Keith wasn’t particularly fond of beaches, so it was bizarre that his mind had conjured this particular image. 

The slight lull in the professor’s voice shook Keith out of his fantasies of Moth-man, just in time to follow eyes to the flickering lights in the back corner before a boom of thunder shook the building. The effect was instantaneous, shrieks rang out alongside numerous thuds and clangs as books and thermoses hit the floor and the room was plunged into darkness as every light bulb shattered. 

The only thing that assured Keith that he hadn’t died was Pidge’s cursing beside him as they tried to rescue their notes from spilt coffee. Keith remained motionless, staring through the window into the dim lighting of the outside world. From his position he could see the memorial garden that separated the psychology hall from the rest of the campus, and beyond that the university town, and if Keith squinted he swore he could see the green-grey waves of the beach beyond. But that could still be his hallucinations. 

“Well it looks like class is cancelled for now.” The professor laughed nervously. “But please stay inside until the storm dies down a little more.”  
Following this a few people cheered and remembered their phone flashlights, and soon the hall was filled with darkness indisposed with blinding white light.  
“Well Keith.” Pidge’s voice seemed distant and strangely sharp. “Do you want to go-“  
Keith had turned his head to stare at his fluffy haired friend, and had the perfect view to see their scared-shitless expression illuminated by an iPhone 6 torch as someone slammed their hand repeatedly on the glass window of the lecture hall door. 

To Keith it looked like the professor had teleported, but they had probably ran to open the door for the shivering student.  
Quickly a boy slipped in, utterly soaked from the rain and shivering uncontrollably. Instantly Pidge’s hand wrapped around Keith’s wrist and tugged him to his feet, only pausing to grab their bags.  
“Take his jacket off, he’s probably freezing.” Pidge commanded rummaging through Keith’s bag for the first aid kit they insisted he carry with him after his numerous cryptid-hunting accidents.  
Meanwhile Keith was just floored staring at the boy in front of him. He seemed to be some sickly ethereal creature pulled out of storm itself, his lean body wracked with shaking and his tanned skin and curved lips tinged a pale blue. 

“S-sorry, got l-l-lost looking for my c-classroom and got caught in the s-storm.” He stuttered gratefully cradling the pocket heat pack that Pidge had passed him. 

When he spoke he flicked his hair out of his face revealing sharp features and deep blue eyes, with tiny pink boomerang birthmarks outlining his eyes and resting on his cheekbones. 

He seemed at ease stripping off his shirt and socks and wearing another student’s hoodie, but seemed genuinely puzzled by the space blanket that Pidge wrapped around him. 

“Thank you.” He grinned and little dimples formed underneath the birthmarks.  
“It’s no issue.” Pidge grinned sticking their hands into their pockets. “I’ve honestly been wanting to patch someone up rather than Keith.”  
“Keith?” The boy raised an eyebrow, the flashlight illuminating the curve perfectly.  
“Him.” Another student (Hanna?) pointed at him and three flashlights swung around accusingly. 

The silence stretched as the boy openly stared, and Keith was suddenly hyperaware of his dishevelled appearance and his four-day old black shirt. 

“Do… do you have a mullet?” The boy gasped, his now-pink lips dropping open in shock. 

“Do you have a name?” Keith shot back, and internally patted himself on the back for the sharp comeback as his field of vision began to narrow. 

“Lance.” The boy answered, and winked. And in that moment Keith saw waves dancing in Lance’s eyes, not unnaturally like the ceiling but in a beautiful swirling blue sea that twinkled with amusement. 

“Now was that a yes to the mullet thing or-?”  
With that Keith’s body decided enough was enough, and he blacked out before he could respond.


	2. And then, in an unintentional act of memeing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Keith experiences confusion, Shiro arrives, the memes begin and the cryptid senses are tingled.

It was at five eighteen that Keith next awoke, opening his eyes to stare directly into the little neon numerals on his alarm clock. With a groan he snapped his eyelids shut, but the damage had already been done and blue light danced before his shut eyes. 

Keith shifted onto his back and waited until the light faded, and then a few more moments to be sure, before opening his eyes. The ceiling was thankfully unmoving, and was probably the one belonging to Keith’s room. A quick glance to find the black mark above the window confirmed this, as the mark was distinctly from an incident in which Keith took off his favourite pair of boots a little too aggressively. 

The room was bathed in weak light from the half opened blinds, showing several bookcases neatly stacked with titles ranging from Surviving the Wilderness, Frankenstein, The Origin of Species and Cryptology 101. There was also that one shelf with fake covers that Keith was determined not to let anyone know about, but was pretty sure Pidge was aware of after they levelled him with a judgemental stare one morning. 

The rest of the room was not as neatly organised with a large pin board taking up half a wall and a box literally filled with pretty knives, all with an interesting acquisition story behind them. 

However this led to Keith’s dilemma, he was definitely in his room but his last memory was of a pretty boy asking him about his hair in his psychology classroom. Facing the inevitable Keith shrugged off the blankets neatly wrapped around him and stood up, hissing at the headrush of getting up so quickly. 

The good news was that Keith was still dressed (minus his shoes), but he had no idea where the rest of his belongings including his phone were. As well, whilst Keith knew that it was now 5:25 he had no idea if it was early morning or evening. The neighbourhood was generally quiet too, so there was no tell-tale traffic, and the silence in the apartment did not indicate anything considering Pidge’s erratic sleep cycle. 

Emerging from his room, Keith confirmed that he had not been transported to a weird pocket dimension that only consisted of his room, or at least it was a pocket dimension that contained the majority of his apartment. Still Keith continued to search for clues and his phone. Just as Keith was considering checking to see if the bathroom was still there, because being stuck in a pocket dimension without a functioning toilet would suck, the front door swung open. 

“Keith, you’re awake!” Shiro dropped the grocery bags he was carrying to rush over to him. “Are you okay? Are you feeling light-headed or-“   
“So this isn’t a pocket dimension.” Keith murmured.   
“That is not reassuring.” Shiro frowned. “Go sit down and I’ll bring you something to eat.”   
“I’m not hungry.” Keith grumbled but headed to the lounge, only to stumble backwards and reach for a knife that was not there when seeing the unexpected figure.   
“Pidge!” Keith yelped as they blearily opened their eyes and arose from the nest of electronics and schematics they had fallen asleep in.   
“Sup. You’re awake?” They said. “Shiro back yet?”   
“Yeah, he’s in the kitchen and he had groceries for some reason.”   
“After you passed out, I couldn’t carry your skinny ass all by myself so I called him up and he was disgusted by our lack of ingredients and decided to take matters into his own hands.” Pidge explained, shifting over so Keith could sit down.   
“I had to!” Shiro called defensively. “All there was instant coffee and instant ramen!”   
“Hey! We also have some pretty sweet mustards and sauces in the fridge!” Pidge scowled.   
“Only two aren’t past their use by date.” Shiro returned with a plate of sandwiches, putting his hands on hips in a way that could only be described as fatherly concern. 

Keith wrinkled his nose at the overly healthy grain bread Shiro had used, but bit into the tuna sandwich anyway.   
“How did you make this so quickly?” Keith asked around his mouthful.   
“Brotherly secrets.” Shiro smirked grabbing a cashew out the bowl of nuts he had placed on the coffee table.   
“Didn’t you know Keith? Shiro’s prosthetic turns into a spatula the second he walks into a kitchen. I’ve seen it with my own eyes.” Pidge said flatly reaching for a sandwich.   
“Hang on a second.” Keith frowned. “My keys are still in my bag right?”   
Pidge raised an eyebrow and nodded.   
“And Pidge, you didn’t give Shiro your keys, did you?”   
Pidge shook their head and Shiro looked decidedly panicked.   
“Shiro how did you-“   
“So why did you pass out today Keith?” Shiro interjected, rubbing his prosthetic hand with his other nervously.   
Now it was Keith’s turn to be embarrassed whilst Pidge cackled. 

“Keith Dark’ness Dementia Raven Way here, thought that he could stay up longer than I can.” Pidge snorted.   
“How long where you awake for?” Shiro looked disappointed.   
“Umm… thirty-two, thirty-three hours?” Keith guessed.   
And then in an unintentional act of memeing, Shiro folded his hands into a prayer position and pressed them to his face.   
“Keith, you should know better.” Shiro finally ground out. “And Pidge you should not trap my brother into competitions he can’t win.”   
“Hey-“ Keith quickly cut himself off; recoiling from the poisonous glare Shiro sent him.   
“Fine. But it was very dramatic, and totally worth it.” Pidge snickered.   
“What actually happened after I passed out?” Keith said, digging through his memories but only remembering deep blue eyes and a warm voice sharpened into teasing insults. 

“Well for about three seconds everyone just thought you were being dramatic, but you were… scarily still.” Pidge’s voice wavered for a second before returning to their upbeat tone.   
“So everyone freaked out, but you were breathing normally and were just unresponsive so I called Shiro to make sure and he insisted on checking and helping you home.”   
“You actually woke up briefly a few times whilst I was carrying you.” Shiro added.   
“Yeah, I quote sleepy Keith ‘Fekin fite me mcdounlds.’” Pidge teased. “And, ‘the jellybean whispered to me Takashi.’”   
“Oh dear god.” Keith buried his face in his hands.   
“It was great.” Shiro laughed. “When we got in the car the radio was playing MCR and-“   
“Oh no.” Keith whispered.   
“No, Shiro. Go on.” Pidge smiled deviously.   
“No, no, no, nope. I’m going back to bed.”   
“I turned it off and you-“   
“No!”   
“Sat bolt upright and-“   
“I’m not listening to these lies!”   
“Said ‘When I was a young boy-‘”   
Keith slammed his door shut angrily, but he could still hear Shiro and Pidge laughing through the walls. 

It was a few hours later that Keith grumpily emerged from his room under the promise of Shiro’s famous spaghetti bolognaise. Unfortunately he also cooked broccoli he insisted that they eat, which was reminiscent of the first year of Shiro’s guardianship of Keith in which Keith was forced to each so much fruit and vegetables he developed an allergy to bananas. This probably meant Shiro was more shaken by Keith’s passing out than he let on, so Keith ate the broccoli with only a few complaints. 

“Oh yeah, who was the guy wrapped in a space blanket?” Shiro paused halfway through lifting a forkful of pasta to his mouth.   
“Lance? Some kid who got caught in the rain and got lost.” Pidge answered.   
“He isn’t some kid.” The second the words exited Keith’s mouth he regretted them.  
Pidge and Shiro made brief but meaningful eye contact, and Shiro set down his fork to lean his chin casually on one hand and lean forward.   
“Not like that! And put that eyebrow back down Shiro! He was… he wasn’t… argh, he didn’t seem … human.”   
“Are your cryptid senses tingling Keith?” Pidge shifted their chin onto their hand as well, to mirror Shiro in the Keith interrogation.   
“Yes! Yes they are! Did you see his eyes?”   
“No, I wasn’t particularly staring deep into his eyes Keith. That’s a bit too gay.”   
“Says the agender ace kid.”   
“Said to the aggressive knife-wielding gay.” Pidge shot back.   
“Guys please.” Shiro sighed.   
“Says the man who once called me for an hour to drunkenly complain about how bi he was.” Keith snapped. Shiro fell silent.   
“But back to the main point Keith, he didn’t have any tentacles or wings so I think we’re good.” Pidge grinned.   
“Don’t be stupid! Heaps of cryptids can shape-shift, and this guy’s eyes were rippling! It was like his irises were lakes with tides radiating out from the pupils!”   
Shiro and Pidge just looked very smug.   
“Shut up!” Keith growled feeling himself blush to his ears. “I’ll prove it! I’ll go research and then you’ll see.”   
“Sure, sure.” Pidge giggled. “Just don’t blow all our internet on Wikipedia and refreshing his Facebook page.”


	3. It’s better than craigslist!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Keith has hit a new low, Pidge just wants coffee and finger guns are used unironically.

“This is a new low Keith.” Pidge actually looked concerned as they tilted their glasses down to stare Keith directly in the eyes.   
“Well you didn’t want me using up all the Internet.” He mumbled   
“It’s been three days and you’ve found nothing, not even the guy’s Facebook profile.”   
“Cryptid’s don’t need Facebook profiles Pidge. That’s proof right there.”   
“Then why does our Internet history record you looking at over 230 profiles for people named ‘Lance’?”   
“Proof, Pidge. Conclusive proof.”   
“If it’s proof why have you dragged me to Arus Coffee House to use their shitty free wifi?” Pidge snapped.   
“Because you need to leave the apartment sometimes Pidge.” Keith said absentmindedly as he clicked on an article for the ‘Leanan Sidhe’. 

Pidge was silent for a minute or two, tapping their fingers on the lacquered wood and staring out into the light summer rain. Then their fingers stilled and a cocky smirk stretched across their cheeks.   
“You know, it’s always better to do primary research, isn’t it?”   
“What are you planning Pidge?”   
“I’m just saying, if you want to meet this ‘cryptid’ so badly why don’t you do something about it?”   
“He’s not exactly Bigfoot, I can’t just go out and find him.” Keith clicked on another article called ‘Selkies.’   
“You could use Craigslist.”   
“What?” Keith spluttered and almost dropped his phone.   
“Missing connection; you burst into my psychology classroom with mild hypothermia, you insulted my hair, I passed out. Sound familiar?” Pidge tried to keep their face flat, but Keith could see the laughter dancing in their eyes.   
“No. I’ll stick to… no fucking way.” Keith gasped at the slender figure that stepped into the coffee shop, pulling his hood back and closing a bright yellow umbrella.   
Pidge spun around so fast that the table rattled and a hand flew to their face to secure their glasses, then equally as fast they spun around with a grin that was downright demonic.   
“Pidge no-“ Keith whispered desperately grabbing at their small hands only for them to twist away. 

“Hey Lance!” Pidge called out, rising to their feet to be seen above the crowd.   
Lance looked confused, but recognition sparked across his face and even at a distance Keith could see little dimples form.   
“Pidge right?” Lance smiled. “How are you?”   
“I’m fine, how have you been?” Pidge chirped a little too kindly.   
“Good, I was a little sick for a day but I made a full recovery. Thanks to you for that!”   
“It was no problem.”   
“No seriously, you really helped me. Can I buy you and Mulletman a coffee as thanks?” Lance said, his expression unfaltering despite the blasé insult.   
“Excuse me?” Keith yelped.   
“I won't say no to free coffee.” Pidge grinned. “I’ll have a double shot latte, and Keith will have an iced mocha breve.”   
“Gotcha.” And completely unironically he shot Pidge with finger guns and sauntered away.   
“Pidge.” Keith hissed the name between his gritted teeth.   
“What? It’s better than craigslist!” 

Lance returned with the drinks, balanced precariously on a tray. He offered the steaming mug to Pidge who snatched it happily, but slid the iced mocha breve across to Keith. Keith was momentarily offended until Lance slid into the booth next to him, completely casual but arm grazing Keith’s and thigh pressed against his. Instantly Keith felt a flush rise to his cheeks, and guessing by Pidge’s smug expression it wasn’t a subtle one. When Keith glanced across Lance was staring at him curiously.   
“What?” Lance inquired, and then mistaking his question. “I have a cinnamon cappuccino.”   
But then Lance did the unthinkable.   
He took a large gulp of the scalding coffee, maintaining eye contact the entire time, one of his little birthmarks crinkling in mischief.   
“I like my coffee like I like most things; hot.”   
Internally Keith was screaming, but years of dealing with Shiro, Matt and Pidge’s shenanigans had taught him the value of a poker face.   
“Well I like my coffee like I like most things; actually cool.” Keith took an equally long and sustained sip through the straw of his drink.   
Keith took delight in seeing Lance’s eyes linger on his lips and his tanned cheeks take a pink glow.   
“I’m cool! I’m like… cool as hell!” Lance said defensively.   
“Funny, considering that Hell is always on fire, I wouldn’t think its cool at all.”   
It took all of Keith’s self restraint not to lean in and whisper But its definitely fucking hot. Because that would be moving way to fast for someone he had exchanged less than a hundred words with.   
So Keith just listened to Lance splutter until Pidge saved him. 

“Well I like my coffee like I like myself: bitter and nowhere near children.” They snorted, breaking the tense atmosphere that had grown between the two.   
“Kids aren’t so bad. I have seventeen cousins.” Lance grinned.   
“Ew keep them to yourself.” Pidge recoiled. “I have ten and that's quite enough thanks.”   
“Most of them are older than you Pidge.” Keith said, relieved for the subject change.   
“Physically.” Pidge rolled their eyes. “They’re popping out babies but they didn’t understand high school algebra.”   
“To be fair-“ As he talked Lance’s face darkened and he quickly whipped out his watch.   
“Shit! I’ve got to go, I’m really sorry!” Quickly Lance chugged the rest of his coffee and snatched his umbrella off the ground.   
“Don’t worry about it, we’ll see you around?” Pidge smiled.   
“Yeah! See you Pidge.” Lance pointed finger guns at Pidge again and ran a few steps.   
He then spun on his heel and with a smirk on his face he winked.   
“Bye Keith.”   
And then he was gone and Keith was floored and pissed, because just before the boy had left he had seen the ocean swirling in those eyes again. 

But as soon as Lance was gone, Keith had bigger problems. Namely Pidge.   
“Goddamn Keith! What the hell was that? That was the most intense eye-fucking I’ve seen in awhile!” Despite their aggressive tone, Pidge had the biggest shit-eating grin on their face.   
“Pidge!” Keith protested, burying his head in his hands. “I don't know why! It just happened!”   
“You didn't get his number.” Pidge said sadly. “That was phase two of the plan, but he ran away as soon as the rain stopped.”   
“Wait what?” Keith frowned.   
“What? You didn’t expect me not to have a plan-“   
“No. The rain?” Keith clarified.   
“Well, yeah. It just stopped and Lance ran out just as it did.” Pidge shrugged.   
“Pidge.” Keith breathed.   
“Keith NO.”   
“It’s a connection! Come on! We have to go to home depot and get more red string!”   
“WE’VE ALREADY BLOWN OUR BUDGET ON RED STRING!!!”


	4. Five ft. eight of beautiful cryptid

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> People are established as heathens, a giant inflatable swan is more prominent than it should be and the mullet-y truth is revealed.

“I still can’t believe you bought so much red string.”  
“It was on sale.” Keith huffed, defending the purchase he had made three days prior.  
The red string stretched between a total of three sheets of paper, one labelled rain, another labelled eyes and the other labelled LANCE.  
It really wasn’t much to go on. 

“Come on Keith, you can't keep just looking at this-“ Pidge waved loosely towards the empty pin board. “It’s just going to make you mope around and bite your fingernails again, and that is a truly tragic combination with your fingerless gloves.”  
“Shut your fuck Pidge, the real tragic combination here is your outfit.”  
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.” Pidge sniffed, seemingly indifferent towards their cat stocking and blue leg warmers combination. “Besides, don’t try and change the subject.”  
“And what is the subject? This conspiracy theory is empty and I should go back to mothman?”  
“Well yes. But first you need a break, so we’re going to the beach.”  
“You hate the beach. I hate the beach. Why would we go to the beach?” Keith stared at Pidge’s pale complexion. Pidge didn’t even dare going outside on a sunny day without sunscreen after a vicious scolding from their brother and Shiro, following an incident that stemmed from three 10km eggs on Pokemon Go and resulted in a sprained ankle and a sunburn in the shape of their glasses. 

“Something is calling me there.” Pidge said mysteriously.  
“What? Some sort of ocean robot seducing you from the depths?”  
“Close, but no. A kid in my engineering class works at a pizza shack there, and I’ve tasted his cooking and my man, I’ve never wanted to fuck anything in my life Keith. But Keith, I wanted to fuck that pizza.”  
“… Let’s go.”

Driftwood pizza shack was a family run bar-restaurant, with the bar leading directly onto the beach so the stools sat in squeaky yellow sand and a salty ocean breeze blew through the shack. The restaurant portion sat on a wooden patio with an adjoining pool filled with strangely shaped inflatables. The entire area was decorated with driftwood and tropical flowers, creating a relaxing and welcoming atmosphere. 

Unfortunately that atmosphere was shattered by Pidge and Keith’s presence.  
“You’re a heathen Keith! A goddamn, filthy, fucking heathen!” Pidge screeched, slamming their hand down on the table so hard that the little plastic saltshaker bounced.  
“You’re the heathen! You claim to love pizza, but you can’t even respect one of its most popular forms!”  
“Fruit shouldn’t be on pizza!”  
“Then what is a tomato?!”  
“An exception!”  
“So would you guys like different pizzas? Or a half-half one?” Pidge’s friend Hunk interjected, looking a little worried for the rattling table.  
“I don’t want pineapple anywhere near my meat-lovers.” Pidge hissed. “I refuse to share a pizza if it has that monstrosity on it.” 

“You guys are really intense about pizza, huh?” A familiar voice called from the pool.  
Then in an image that would haunt Keith’s dreams for months, Lance emerged from behind a giant inflatable swan in the pool and pulled himself out in one fluid movement. Half of his hair was pushed back whilst the other half stuck out in semi-dry spikes, and Keith swore it was water sparkling in the sun that drew his eyes up down his body and not Lance’s incredibly shirtless and toned torso.  
“Lance!” Pidge yelped. “What are you doing here?”  
“I… I live here? Sometimes.”  
“Lance’s and my family has been friends for a long-time, so he’s staying with us for a bit.” Hunk explained, and fist bumped Lance.  
“Oh that’s cool.” Pidge grinned. “Sort of what Keith and I are doing.”  
“What are you two doing?” Lance leant against Hunk who shoved him off, fussing over his now damp clothes.  
“Keith used to live with his older brother about an hour from here, near the hospital his brother and my older brother work at. Obviously it would be a pain to travel an hour every morning so Keith wanted to move out, and lo and behold my brother wanted to move out of home to be closer to the hospital and I wanted to move to be close to the university.” 

“You did a sibling swap!” Lance grinned, and his teeth were incredibly white and straight, Keith could only hope that since the tanned boy clearly wasn’t one he hopefully wasn’t the other. 

“Sort of, Shiro still shows up every other day.” Pidge laughed nudging Keith teasingly.  
“He brings groceries, he can come.” Keith shrugged. “Still don’t know how he gets in though.”  
“Sorry to interrupt this guys, but I don’t want to leave the dough sitting for too much longer.” Hunk smiled guiltily. “Have you come to a decision yet?”  
“Meat-lovers.”  
“Hawaiian.”  
Hunk looked confused for a second before offering. “Half-half? Or two?”  
“If you loved me, you would pick meat-lovers.” Pidge threatened.  
“Hawaiian it is.” Keith replied coldly.  
“Goodbye heathen.” Pidge stood up.  
“So Hunk, you wanna share a pizza? My treat! I just can’t eat it all by myself.”  
“Sure!” Hunk smiled, and Keith couldn’t stay mad at him even though he took Pidge’s side.  
“You want to leave this heathen in the dust too, Lance?”  
“Unfortunately no, I am a supporter of pineapple.”  
“You can share with me then.” Keith offered, before he realised that he was inviting a cryptid to eat with him. Alone.  
“Alright.” Lance smiled warmly and slid into Pidge’s ex-seat.  
“You’re dead to me.” Pidge frowned and spun around, the pom-poms on their jacket adding a gentle but dramatic smack to their exit.  
“I’ll bring the pizza out in fifteen minutes!” Hunk promised and returned to the kitchen, leaving Keith with five ft. eight of beautiful cryptid. 

“So… what have you been up to?” Keith said awkwardly, finally straitening the saltshaker that had tipped.  
“Not much, just helping out at the pizza shack and studying.” Lance answered, his eyes following Keith’s fluttering hands.  
“Studying? What are you studying?”  
“Environmental biology. You know, studying ecology, zoology, botany all that. What about you?”  
“Astrophysics. You know, maths, physics, space all that.” Keith tried to joke, but Lance just narrowed his eyes at him.  
“Why were you in a psychology classroom then?”  
“It’s an elective class and Pidge takes it so we both share notes.”  
“You two get along really well, don’t you?”  
“Well yeah… we live together, it would be more difficult if we didn’t like each other to an extent.”  
“I’m not sure if they like you anymore after this pizza debate.”  
“Their loss, I assure you.” Keith said dryly, and willed his cheeks to stop turning pink when Lance laughed. 

“So I’ve been meaning to ask…” Lance leant forward, his eyes fixated on Keith’s. “Is your hair actually a mullet?”  
“What?”  
“No, no, I’ve been debating this for awhile. A mullet’s definition is ‘party in the back, business in the front.’ And whilst your hair is definitely ‘party in the back’, I’m not convinced its actually ‘business in the front’ material.”  
“You’ve been talking about my hair?” Keith tugged on one of his bangs self-consciously.  
“Irrelevant.” Lance’s voice raised in pitch a little bit and he leant back quickly. “But what is the truth mullet-man?”  
“Honestly?” Keith sighed. “A year ago I went to a cheap place to get a hair cut and they stuffed up. Really badly. I had a real mullet that was lopsided. I’ve been growing it out ever since to fix it, and I’ve been to afraid to go back and get it cut.”  
“… So this is like post-mullet?”  
“That’s what you get out of my story?” Keith huffed.  
“I wasn’t sure if it was polite to address your phobia of hairdressers.” Lance joked.  
“Besides, I can’t believe this came from an honest to god mullet.” Lance reached out slightly, before seeming to realise his action and quickly dropping his hand away from Keith’s hair. 

“One Hawaiian pizza!” Hunk arrived thankfully cutting the moment short.  
“Hunk, have I ever told you how much I love you?” Lance draped himself backwards over his chair, so he could stare directly into Hunk’s eyes.  
“Only every time I bring you food.” Hunk snorted and placed the platter onto the table, passing it over Lance’s head easily.  
“It’s genuine every single time.”  
“I believe you man, I love you too.”  
“Even though I only bring meme’s to this relationship?” Lance grabbed his chest dramatically. “You’re too good for me!”  
“Damn right I am.” Hunk sniffed, but the affectionate way he tussled Lance’s hair suggested otherwise.  
Grumbling Lance swatted him away and stuck his tongue out at Hunk’s retreating figure. 

“Now Keith! Are you ready for literally the most wonderful thing you will ever taste?”  
“I’ve braced myself.” Keith said flatly, reaching for a slice.  
Lance just smirked, arms crossed and carefully watching Keith’s reaction. 

“Well?” 

After a single bite Keith was understanding Pidge’s reaction, the bread was crispy on the outside with a soft centre, the tomato base had hints of herbs in it and the cheese was simultaneously stringy and creamy. For someone who had been living primarily off of instant noodles, it was heaven.  
“Lance.” Keith finally rasped. “You know Hunk the best, do you think he would say yes if I asked him to marry me?”  
“Unfortunately no. He’s been refusing me since I was thirteen due to his long-term girlfriend Shay.” Lance chuckled taking a piece for himself.  
“I’m contemplating murder.” Keith admitted.  
“Me too.” Lance sighed. “But Shay is ripped, she’d snap me in half before I could even look threateningly at her.”  
“She sounds wonderful.” Keith sighed. “I can’t compete with that.”  
“Thank god Hunk shares his skills with the world.” Lance said taking a mournful bite of pizza. 

Before Keith knew it, the pizza was gone and conversation had ceased into a content silence. Except barely a minute ago Pidge had glided past their table on the way to the bathroom and mouthed ‘Craigslist’ at Keith threateningly, and he knew he only had a few minutes to ask for Lance’s number before Pidge did it for him. 

“That was a really nice Hawaiian pizza.”  
“Yeah it was.” Lance looked startled at Keith’s statement but responded warmly nonetheless.  
“It’s a shame Pidge doesn’t like them, but at least I now know one other person who is pro-pineapple.” Keith couldn’t look Lance in the eye, and instead picked nervously at his cuticles.  
“Yeah! Anytime you want to have a pineapple-pizza-party, invite me!”  
“Then can I have your number?” Keith blurted out. “You know, if I have a pizza party or something.”  
In the few seconds it took Lance to reply Keith had mentally sprinted for his motorbike, started the ignition and driven into the ocean. Thankfully Keith stopped himself from actually performing the visualisation by Lance’s easy-going answer.  
“Sure thing, just text me your number!” 

Numbly Keith handed over his phone, watching detachedly as Lance deftly filled out his contact details and quickly took a selfie of himself to add as well.  
“Lance! Your mother is calling!” Hunk yelled from the bar, causing Lance to leap up, grinning widely and tossing Keith’s phone back to him before running inside. 

“So… How’d it go?” Pidge smirked, leaning casually on the railing.  
For a minute or so Keith didn't answer, just stared blankly at the selfie contained in the tiny contact circle of his phone.  
“His last name is Sanchez.” Keith blurted out, finally reading the extra titbit of information.  
“Hoo boy.” Pidge sighed and grabbed Keith by the back of his collar. “Let’s head home lover boy.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Major shout-out to my two incredible friends Anna and Saphy for the mullet discourse, and specifically Anna for reading over this chapter and making sure it hadn't been ruined by my 11:45pm writing and Saphy for Pidge's outfit. If you have the time please check out [ Anna's](http://kyoukoswife.tumblr.com) art blog! Her art is wonderful and she needs more followers <3


	5. I wAS HAVING A BATH

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Text messages are sent, a crisis occurs and Pidge is promised many good things.

(Keith): Hey. 

(Lance): Hi??? Is this Keith??

(Keith): Oh oops, yeah it’s me. Sorry about that. 

(Lance): Haha don’t worry about it. So what’s up? 

(Keith): Nothing much just going over some physics work. 

(Lance): Sounds mathy. 

(Keith): Surprisingly it is very ‘mathy’. What about you? 

(Lance): Just finished babysitting Hunk’s little siblings. I basically just made sure they didn’t drown, but now they’re out of the ocean they’re no longer my responsibility. 

(Keith): Do you babysit them a lot? 

(Lance): Yeah, they call me Uncle Lance sometimes so I can’t say no to them :’) 

(Keith): Aw that’s adorable, how old are they? 

(Lance): Haku and Kalena are twins and are eleven, and Ingrid is eight. 

(Keith): Is it hard looking after them? 

(Lance): Not when they’re in a good mood. But if Haku and Kalena are feeling mischievous they can create absolute hell. One time they somehow caught a seagull and let it loose in the bathroom whilst I wAS HAVING A BATH. 

(Keith): Oh dear lord. 

(Lance): I stayed with my cousins for a month after that, Hunk had to bribe me with garlic knots to come over again. 

(Keith): Hunk is a true friend. 

(Keith): Sorry brb someone is shouting?? 

The voice seemed to fluctuate between drawn out wails and short pleas for help, but it was distinctly coming closer. Frowning Keith shut his textbook and grabbed one of his more intimidating looking knives as he left his room, and carefully approached the apartment door. 

Pidge raised an eyebrow at Keith’s creeping and resumed staring forlornly into the fridge, seemingly unbothered by the voice. 

They only jumped when the person wailing stood directly outside and knocked continuously on the door.   
By this time the voice was close enough to recognise.   
“Shiro?” Keith opened the door to his distraught brother.   
“Pidge! Pidge! Oh god you gotta help me!” Shiro screeched, pushing past Keith and searching for Pidge.   
“Shiro, what are you doing?” Pidge asked as he rushed pleadingly towards them. 

Pidge’s question was well justified, Shiro had tightly wrapped his jacket around his prosthetic and seemed to be restraining it with his other hand. 

“Preventing a disaster! It won’t stop Pidge! I can’t make is stop!” Shiro grappled with the jacket and revealed his prosthetic uncontrollably alternating between the bird and shakas. 

“Stop laughing! I flipped off an old lady! You stop laughing too Keith! Pidge don’t you dare film this!”   
Regardless of Shiro’s commands the two younger siblings continued to roar with laughter, Pidge shaking so badly they almost dropped their phone filming. 

“W-what happened?” Keith finally managed to giggle out. 

“I think it was meant to be a prank. It was a new program that the development team had made, but I ran late in consulting appointments so I decided to skip testing it on the model and just uploaded it onto my prosthetic.” Shiro cried, struggling to restrain the arm with his jacket again. 

“So what’s the problem? Did they add a virus so you can’t uninstall it?” Pidge finally shut the fridge and attempted to wrestle Shiro’s arm into a more manageable position. 

“No! I just… I just can’t remove the program with only one hand.” Shiro’s face flushed. “We should probably fix that in the next model.” 

“Oh.” Pidge sobered up immediately. “Well I just need to pull the hatch loose right? And then…” 

Keith let Pidge’s voice trail off into the background, and instead sat down heavily on the pile of boxes that was sometimes a seat, and sometimes a coat rack. It had been enough years for Keith to accept that the prosthetic was part of Shiro and he had adjusted to life with it, but six years was nowhere near long enough to numb the memory of the event that took their parents lives and Shiro’s arm. Underneath Keith’s shirt a diagonal line from the bottom of his ribs and creeping up to his ear burned. 

“Keith? Buddy you okay?” Shiro called, his prosthetic lying limply at his side but his face creased with concern.   
“Fine.” Keith muttered.   
“You sure?” Shiro asked again, but softer.   
“Yeah.” Keith shook his head, trying to chase the bad thoughts away. “No I’m okay. It’s fine.” 

Six years may not be able to numb his memories, but the pain had faded and Keith wasn’t going to let himself be held back or worry his brother over the occasional moment. 

“If you say so.” Shiro sighed. “Now Pidge, if you can restore my arm to the previous programming I will buy you eight jars of peanut butter.”   
“Holy shit, deal!” Pidge grinned and began fiddling with the prosthetic again. 

Meanwhile Keith shook his head one final time and rolled his shoulders back. 

(Keith): You’ll never believe what just happened. 

(Lance): Omg tell me!!!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry that this one is a little bit short, but I'm trying to upload one more chapter tonight as well!!


	6. I’ll come to your funeral

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Keith ain't no quitter, but Lance ain't one either.

(Keith): Pidge has just been laughing uncontrollably for the past five minutes, clutching eight jars of peanut butter to their chest.

(Lance): Wtf?? What even goes on at your apartment??

(Keith): I’m not sure. Shiro gave it to them so I blame it on him.

(Lance): I dare you to try and steal one.

(Keith): I like my neck firmly attached to my body thanks.

(Lance): C’mon, Pidge is like 5’3 and you’re like 5’7? What could they honestly do?

(Keith): Pidge is 5’3 of rage and vengeance and uses their stature to their advantage.

(Lance): You’re seriously backing down from a weak challenge like that?

(Keith): Brb.

(Lance): Omg Keith no.

(Lance): Be careful.

(Lance): Keith????

(Lance): Buddy, pal, friendo. Respond so I know Pidge didn’t actually kill you.

(Keith): I just spent the last two hours trapped in the pantry.

(Lance): How??? Why???

(Keith): I attempted to snatch one of Pidge’s jars and they full on lunged at me with a screwdriver so I ran.

(Lance): Into the pantry??

(Keith): Admittedly not my best decision, but they were gaining on me and I just wanted shelter.

(Lance): But why two hours?

(Keith): Pidge locked me in there. I was holding it shut and they literally drilled a padlock onto the pantry.

(Lance): … At least you didn’t get hungry??

(Keith): True. I found a packet of dried cranberries in there and ate it.

(Lance): Dried cranberries…?

(Keith): Our pantry is not well-stocked. It was that or rolled oats.

(Lance): Just be glad you weren’t locked in there all night.

(Keith): Pidge let me out because apparently they had hidden some marshmallows on the top shelf that they wanted to eat.

(Lance): Tbh the more you describe it the more it sounds like a traumatic experience.

(Keith): It was??? And its all your fault.

(Lance): ME????

(Keith): You set me up for it!!

(Lance): You just ran in without a plan!! You could’ve distracted them and then stolen the peanut butter. Trust me I’m an expert.

(Keith): Alright then, if you’re such an expert you’ve got to do something now.

(Lance): Like what?

(Keith): Sneak a seagull into Hunk’s house.

(Lance): KEITH NO

(Keith): You’re seriously backing down from a weak challenge like that?

(Lance): Did you just…?

(Keith): Yes.

(Lance): Fine and fuck you. I’ll text you the results.

(Keith): I look forward to it.

(Keith): It’s been a day, are you still strategizing?

(Lance): I was forcibly removed from Hunk’s house, thrown into the ocean and forced to sleep at my cousins place T^T

(Keith): Still sounds more fun than my two hours spent in a pantry.

(Lance): My cousin has no cell-phone or wifi signal at her house, and only eats food she has grown herself or bought from an organic market.

(Keith): I take everything back.

(Lance): I managed to convince Hunk to take me back but he told my mum and she called up and yelled at me :(

(Keith): So much for being an expert.

(Lance): YOU try catching and sneaking a seagull into your house!!!

(Keith): Maybe I will.

(Lance): Are you serious?

(Keith): I’ll lure a pigeon in.

(Lance): I’ll come to your funeral.

(Keith): Thanks buddy.


	7. Pidge just cackled

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The conspiracy board returns, Pidge needs to tone down their sarcasm and Keith is entirely unaware of his actions.

“This conspiracy board is coming along wonderfully Keith.” Pidge said sarcastically. “Is that a new post-it note near the rain card?” 

Keith ignored their comment and simply hooked a strand of red string around the pin holding up a picture of an inflatable swan. 

“Oh no! It’s two! It’s definitely coming along!” Pidge adjusted their glasses to squint at Keith’s writing. “Oooh! ‘Can swim’ and ‘Likes pineapple pizza’ – you should change that one to ‘being a heathen’ by the way.” 

“I’m not starting that argument with you again at-“ Keith checked his watch. “9:45 on a Thursday night.”   
“Have you become so old that 9:45 is the new 3 AM?” Pidge teased.   
“Only if I’m around you.” 

Pidge scoffed and just flopped onto Keith’s bed in response. 

“I’m not being entirely ridiculous though Pidge. Every single time we meet him it’s either raining or he’s in the water.” Keith said defensively, grabbing more post-it notes to add information from their texting conversations. 

“I wonder why.” Pidge’s voice was muffled by Keith’s duvet. “He lives by the beach and there’s early summer rain.”   
“But still, three times? That’s hardly a coincidence, now is it?”   
“Last time I checked conclusive proof was over 230 Facebook profiles, so why does the presence of water in a world that is 71% water only need three examples?”   
“I can’t just ignore a pattern Pidge!”   
“Fine! Then try and break it! It should be completely sunny all weekend, try to get him to go somewhere that’s not close to water and see if he shows up!” Pidge challenged.   
“Fine I will!” 

(Keith): Hey Lance, are you free this weekend? 

(Lance): Yeah, what’s up? 

For a second Keith paused, he didn’t think Lance would reply so quickly and assumed he would have a little more time to think. But the only requirements for the test would be that there would be little to no water, and it would be natural enough that Lance wouldn’t suspect anything. 

(Keith): Do you want to go see a movie? 

(Lance): Sure, which one? 

(Keith): I’m not sure. Anything you want to see in particular? 

Finally noticing Keith’s silence, Pidge rolled off of their face and stretched away from the bed to peer over Keith’s shoulder. 

(Lance): How about Rainfall? There is a session at 2 on Saturday. 

(Keith): Sounds great! I can pick you up at 1:30 on my motorbike if you like? Or we can just meet up there. 

(Lance): YOU HAVE A MOTORBIKE?? OH MY GOD PLEASE PICK ME UP ON IT!!! 

(Keith): Haha sure, I’ll bring a spare helmet. 

“So I guess you’ll be busy this Saturday?” Pidge smirked, digging their chin into Keith’s shoulder.   
“Yeah, if he shows and there is no rain or water my theory will be disproven.”   
“Sounds like a date.” Pidge said innocently.   
“Pidge what are you…” Keith’s phone slipped from his hand and clattered to the floor. 

“DID I JUST ASK HIM OUT ON DATE?!”   
“That you did, friend. Only you can get a date and not even realise.”   
“Pidge.” Keith felt his entire face burn red. “What am I going to wear?”   
Pidge just cackled.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is very short chapter, but I'm going to have to split up the date into a few chapters, which luckily means I'll be able to get one more chapter out tonight!


	8. It was meant to be Squidward crying

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Keith's motorbike is important, Rover is accidentally horrifying and Pidge needs to stop.

For all of Pidge’s and Shiro’s teasing it seemed that for once Red wasn’t just a convenient method of transport, but was genuinely going to help him seduce a cute boy/potential cryptid. 

Honestly, her time had come. She was sleek and glossy, and despite Shiro’s worrying he had never fallen off her since she was bought four years ago. Whilst Keith didn’t take her to university everyday for fear of vandals and thieves, in his more troubled years she had been the perfect companion. 

Keith had never thought he would’ve been the type of guy to talk to his vehicle, but when Shiro picked up more shifts at the hospital and the clogging silence of the apartment couldn’t be overcome with music or TV. Keith would end up driving Red as fast and far as she would go, until the roads succumbed to desert sands and Keith found himself with nowhere further to go but back. During these times he’d lie down with one hand on the front wheel and the other tucked under his head, talking either to Red, the stars or just the general emptiness of the desert, until the feeling of hollowness faded or Shiro’s frantic call reached him after he arrived home to an empty apartment at 2 AM. 

Regardless, all of Keith’s previous misadventures in romance had either not lasted long enough to meet Red or as one faded face had proclaimed ‘Took the bad-boy aesthetic too far.’ 

Keith felt that last comment was a little unfair, especially since on that particular night he was wearing a black shirt yes, but with the print of a cartoon ghost saying ‘I think you’re boo-tiful.’ At that time Pidge had laughed, patted him on the shoulder reassuringly and hacked the guy’s Facebook account to turn him into an obsessive Winnie-the-Pooh fan. 

But Lance had seemed to have a positive reaction to Keith having a motorbike, so he could only hope that he liked that Red in reality and wasn’t disappointed by her slim, agile build. 

“Keith it’s one o’clock. Are you still staring at your bike?”  
“No!” Keith yelped, snatching his hand away from where he had been forlornly stroking Red.  
“You’re going to be fine, your outfit matches the bike and Lance will like it.” Pidge poked their head out from the elevator to stare into the garage accusingly.  
“My outfit does not match my bike!” Keith said indignantly.  
“Dude, you could belong to one of those compilations of people who look like their pets. But you know, its you and your motorbike.”  
“Her name is Red.” Keith muttered.  
“I wouldn’t of guessed it.” Pidge said sarcastically. “Surprisingly the bike is red, black, white and yellow, which matches your outfit.”  
“Shit you’re right.” Keith looked down horrified at his clothing. 

Whilst his outfit was one he wore often, he did tend to wear this particular get-up of black skinny jeans, black t-shirt and cropped red jacket, when he knew he was going to be riding his bike because it matched his riding gloves. It was with a sinking sense of despair Keith realised he may have been subconsciously dressing to match his bike like it was an accessory. 

“I can see you’re freaking out, and I admit, I probably shouldn’t have pointed that out before you went on a date.” Pidge emerged from the elevator. “But you’re going to be fine.”  
“Pidge. Why do you have Rover with you?” Keith demanded, looking at the tiny inconspicuous robot in their hands. 

Pidge looked guilty, and for good reason too. Whilst Rover was a marvel of engineering painstakingly designed and constructed to hover, beep and act as a vaguely-sentient drone, Pidge more often than not would use Rover’s storage compartment to give people ‘gifts’ they did want to personally hand over. Once they delivered a box chocolates to their mother when they was busy studying, another time they rigged it with a firework that shot Matt in the face as soon as it opened, momentarily lighting his hair on fire. 

“Maintenance.” Pidge obviously lied. “But… oh no… it appears he has something to give to you.”  
Rover flickered to life and arose from Pidge’s hands to hover in front of Keith, flashing a little neon icon of present warmly.  
“I’m not fucking opening that.” Keith growled, and poked Rover back when he floated closer.  
“You don’t want to make Rover sad, do you now?” Pidge wheedled and Rover’s present icon turned into a sad face.  
“I don’t think he has feelings.” Keith retorted and grabbed his helmet. 

In response Rover let out some sort of screechy noise that sounded half like a fork going through a blender and half like a baby’s crying slowed down. 

“That was definitely the wrong sound file.” Pidge frowned. “It was meant to be Squidward crying. I’m not lying when I say that he needs some maintenance.” 

Strangely enough that horrific shrieking assured Keith that whatever prank Pidge had set up, it was not going to be super elaborate and more likely something thought up in the spur of the moment. With a sigh Keith reached towards Rover and opened the little present hatch, only for a small box to slide out. Once Keith processed what the object was, he nearly punched Rover out of the air. 

“Pidge! I’m going to a movie theatre in the middle of the day!” Keith’s face was bright red in embarrassment. “I don’t need condoms!”  
Rover retreated back to hide behind Pidge, letting out the awful screech noise as he did so.  
“I’ve told you about that one time-“ Pidge began.  
“I’m not going to have sex with anyone in a movie theatre whilst a psychological thriller is playing. I understand how turning around and seeing that can be traumatising, but I assure you the vast majority of the population including me does not do that.”  
“Public bathrooms then.” With that Pidge backed into the elevator and started frantically pushing the doors shut.  
“Jesus Christ Pidge, I have no idea how you keep walking in on people having sex in weird places but I assure none of that is happening.” Scooping the little box off the floor Keith pelted it at Pidge and in a moment of perfection Keith was able to see it hit them in the face just before the doors slammed shut. 

Luckily Keith had jumped on Red and sped out onto the street by the time he heard Pidge shout angrily from the garage and Rover nightmarishly shriek in support too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The date will officially start next chapter, which means it's also going to be a long chapter and might take me a little longer than usual to write it. Either way I will STRONGLY attempt to have it finished before midnight tomorrow. Also one of the things that happened in this chapter was real, the first person to guess what it was can request a secret about one of the characters in this au.


	9. A manner that was more desperate than romantic

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The date begins, Lance is not acclimatised and the conspiracy board returns.

Once safely away from Pidge’s antics (and Rover for that matter too), Keith was able to concede that it was a perfect day to test Lance’s dependence on water. The air was dry and the sky was incredibly blue without a single cloud. The only problem was Keith was worried the heat was making him sweat, and by the time he saw Lance he would be a drenched mess. Considering this Keith took the slightly longer and shadier way to the beach. 

When Keith arrived Lance was looking the other way expectantly, and Keith was immensely relieved because he definitely needed a minute to compose himself. Lance’s outfit was casual, but the way that it fitted him couldn’t be accidental. The blue jeans he wore hugged and accentuated every curve of his legs lengthening them beyond comprehension, and even the loose white T-shirt stretched across his shoulders, promising the toned torso that Keith had had the fortune to have seen once before. 

Swallowing Keith removed his helmet and shook out his hair, only to look up and realise the motion had caught Lance’s eye and he was now openly staring at him.   
“Hey.” Keith waved feeling a little bit stupid. “Sorry I’m late.”   
“No problem, it was only five minutes.” Lance strode over and smiled so warmly Keith felt like he would drown in his glittering eyes.   
“Is this your motorbike?” Lance asked, extending a hand and hesitating.   
“Yeah that’s Red, and you can touch her.” Keith answered his unspoken question.   
“Red?” The corner of Lance’s mouth quirked up.   
“Uh… yeah.” Keith blushed, he didn’t mean to tell Lance he had named his bike but the fact was now out in the open alongside the fact that Keith had very basic naming skills.   
“She’s beautiful. But does she go fast?” Lance smirked running his fingers lightly across the handlebars.   
“Why don’t I show you?” 

Apparently Keith and Lance had very different ideas of what fast is. Lance let this be known through the sheer amount of expletives he yelled in various languages, with his face buried in Keith’s shoulders and his arms crushing Keith’s ribs. Respectfully Keith slowed down, and whilst the curses stopped Lance’s arms remained tightly wrapped around Keith.   
“Is this speed okay for you?” Keith shouted over the wind. 

This was the wrong thing to say. 

“Is that a challenge?” Lance lifted his head from cowering behind Keith, but in doing so pressed his body a little closer to Keith.   
“N-no.” Keith kept his eyes on the road, and was immensely glad Lance couldn’t see his face.   
“I think it was. Now weren’t you meant to show me how fast this thing can go?”   
“Hold on then.” Keith hissed and revved Red’s engine.   
She responded with a purr and the world blurred around them. 

Lance kept stubbornly silent but his arms were tightly wrapped around Keith’s midsection, a warm distraction but a reminder to take the corners more carefully. Because if Keith crashed Shiro might never forgive him, but if Keith crashed with Lance on board he would never forgive himself. 

“You’re still shaking.” Keith frowned.   
“Yeah, with adrenaline! That was awesome!” Lance said defensively.   
“I’m glad you enjoyed it, but seriously Lance its been five minutes and you can’t stand.” 

Red was parked in a thankfully secluded corner, so Keith hadn’t felt too awkward sitting there with Lance’s arms wrapped around him for two minutes. After that Keith became too worried for Lance’s health and reluctantly unwound himself to face him and help him remove his helmet. 

“I can stand if I want! It’s just… um… I really like Red. She’s great and I love her.” Lance nodded decisively.   
Keith simply sighed, stood and offered his hand.   
“I’ll make sure you don’t fall, I promise.”   
Lance’s pearly teeth chewed his lip and one hand tightened on the strap of his satchel.   
Keith’s usual fantasy of escaping an awkward situation by jumping on Red and driving away, was continuously interrupted by the fact he would have to push Lance off, which thankfully led him to hesitate longer than usual. 

So caught up in his musings Keith jolted slightly when Lance’s fingers touched his, but Lance chased his movement and gripped his hand in a manner that was more desperate than romantic.   
“I’m trusting you on this.” Lance ground out, colour returning to his face alongside an undeniable blush. 

Lance then tried to stand, and almost immediately his knees buckled. Instinctively Keith yanked Lance towards him and grabbed his waist to keep him upright, it worked but now Keith was effectively pressing Lance in all his angles and curves to him. 

Lance seemed oblivious to Keith’s panic, just muttering thanks, pulling himself up to stumble a few steps, and tugging Keith along with him for a few metres until Keith’s body caught up with his mind and he hurried to walk directly next to him. 

Keith swung their hands a little when they walked, but not too much because Lance still seemed a little unsteady, and if Keith became too aggressive in the hand-swing Lance would definitely declare it a competition and slam Keith into a wall. 

Luckily Lance seemed too distracted by summarising the premise of Rainfall to Keith. 

“… So then the princess runs away but she can never see her family again because if she sees the lights of the city she’ll be blinded, but the hero insists that the only way to defeat the monsters is by retrieving weapons from the city. So she wears a blindfold and apparently there is an incredibly creepy sequence from her perspective…” 

Lance somehow manages to keep up his babble all the way to the ticket booth, and only protests when he’s realised that Keith has paid for both of them but by that point Keith insists its too late and leads Lance to the snack bar instead. Lance seemed determined to pay this time, but Keith distracted him with arguing whether mint-flavoured or berry-flavoured things were better and hastily slid his credit card to the employee once he ascertained what Lance wanted. The employee looked amused by their antics and Lance’s outrage when he realised Keith had managed to order and buy everything without him noticing. 

“Keith, just let me pay for one thing!” Lance whined, one hand holding the popcorn bucket and the other almost crushing Keith’s hand.   
“You can buy next time.” Keith laughed, and internally screamed because he didn’t mean to be so forward.   
“Damn right I will.” Lance sniffed. 

Keith’s blush didn’t fade until the two had sat down and the ads started, at this point Lance finally released Keith’s hand to ensure that his phone was on silent and Keith was able to compose himself a bit. 

This composure was lost when ten minutes into the movie Lance laughed at a joke. 

His laugh was rich and joyful, and was tragically cut short when a piece of popcorn went down the wrong way. Keith short circuited when his mind connected choking with stopping breathing and then CPR, but luckily Lance had it handled and fished a water bottle out of his bag. 

“Sorry.” Lance mumbled. “I didn’t expect that seashell to come out of nowhere.” 

Keith wasn’t sure exactly what was so funny about that scene, but he had heard a few other rumbles of laughter in the cinema so he must’ve just been missing some context. 

Either way it was stupid how attracted he was to watching Lance sip his water bottle, and Keith eventually forced his focus on the movie because whilst his standards were pretty low, fantasizing about someone’s mouth whilst sitting next to and holding hands with them was a bad idea. 

But they continued to hold hands even after the movie ended and Lance wiped a few stray tears away from his eyes, and all the way back to Red until Lance let go of Keith’s hand to hug his torso instead. 

Driving back Keith drove a little more slowly, partially for Lance’s sake partially because he wasn’t sure how to even end this ‘date’. Keith had come to terms that yes this was a date, and maybe he had a bit of a crush on Lance. But he had no idea if Lance saw it is a date, or if he was just physically affectionate with everyone. 

“You’re not shaking as much this time.” Keith said pulling to a stop outside Hunk’s house.   
Lance shot him a blank look and Keith rolled his eyes, unclipped his helmet and repeated his sentence.   
“Duh, I’m becoming acclimatised.” Lance took his helmet off too, but remained sitting on Red.   
“I don’t think you’re using that word correctly.” Keith frowned.   
“I don’t think you’re…” Lance trailed off.   
“Yeah?” Keith raised an eyebrow. 

Thankfully a seagull squawked flying over them, distracting Keith enough that he broke eye contact with Lance and turned his head. 

Lance took this as an opportunity to lean forward and press a kiss to Keith’s cheek. 

“Sorry… Was that too much?” Lance’s face was flushed and he stood up.   
“N-no!” Keith would later deny that he squeaked, but he was fully aware that he looked ridiculous turning bright red with two fingers gingerly touching where Lance’s lips had been. 

“Oh, good then. Well I’ll organise the next one! And you better let me pay!” 

With that Lance sprinted away, leaving Keith with two motorcycle helmets, a face redder than his motorbike and a sinking realization in his stomach. 

He definitely had a crush. 

“How’d it go lover-boy, was it gay?” Pidge said as soon as Keith entered the apartment.   
In response Keith just slumped against the wall and slid down slowly.   
“So?” Pidge turned around, a screwdriver in their teeth and Rover looking vaguely mangled in their hands.   
“It was gay.” Keith said hoarsely. “And he said he’d organise the next one.”   
“Oh my god!!” Pidge squealed and clapped their hands. “And did he pass the water test?”   
“The water test?” Keith repeated blankly.   
“You know, your original reason for the date? Did he pass?”   
“No… no he didn’t!” Keith sprung to his feet and grabbed Pidge by the shoulders.   
“He was constantly drinking water! I was watching him during the movie and it was practically every minute, and he had two bottles!”   
“Maybe he was just thirsty.” Pidge said dryly, before a wicked glint entered their eyes. “Or maybe you were.”   
“Pidge, I’m calling your brother.” Keith said flatly, letting go of their shoulders.   
“Do that and I’ll show Shiro your conspiracy board!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this is late but some stuff happened and I was pretty freaked out and unable to write for a bit. But on the bright side my older brother just got an offer from a university and is going to go to a really good one!!!


	10. It’s the buff guy!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lance finally pays for something, Shay makes a (stunning) appearance and... something happens.

“Are you going to tell me where we’re going yet?” Keith pouted as their train lurched past yet another station.   
“Nope! It’s a surprise!” Lance smirked. “You’re just upset you had to leave Red at home.”   
“I’m more concerned why you’re insisting on public transport instead of my perfectly functioning motorbike.”   
“Because I’d have to give you directions on Red, but on the train you have no idea where we're going.”   
“Just as long as we’re not going to a cult meeting, I think we should be good.”   
“A cult meeting? There is definitely a story behind that.”  
“Long story short, Matt is very gullible and stupid and thought he joined a choir.”   
“Oh god, why would he even join a choir in the first place?”   
“He didn’t want to be mean. He can’t sing for shit and he hates choral music, but they gave him a pamphlet he was too shy to refuse.”   
“What about you?” Lance tilted his head to the side and Keith was once again struck by how cute he was.   
“M-me? I’ve never joined a cult!” Keith protested.   
“No silly!” Lance snorted. “What sort of music do you like?”   
“A bunch of stuff, nothing super consistent though. Why, do you want to listen to some?”   
“Yeah!” Lance shuffled closer and when Keith looked up from pulling headphones out of his pocket, Lance was staring intently at his phone background. 

“It’s the buff guy!” Lance exclaimed.   
“What?”   
“The guy that showed up once to carry you away like a dramatic princess, and looks like he could leg press two hundred and fifty kilos! Is he your ex?”   
“He can leg press three hundred kilos actually-“   
“Holy shit.”   
“And he’s my brother.” Keith finished.   
“No offence, but… you don’t look very alike.” Lance raised an eyebrow slightly.   
“None taken, I’m adopted.” 

“Oh! Sorry!” Lance seemed embarrassed. “That was probably a very foot-in-mouth thing to say um…”   
“Nah it’s not a big deal. My mum was Rh-Negative and Shiro was Rh-positive and it didn’t get picked up until she had given birth, so she couldn’t have any children after that.” Keith shrugged.   
“Wait sorry, what does that all mean?” Lance looked upset that he didn’t fully understand Keith’s story so he hurried to explain. 

“Well human blood types come in a bunch of different forms, like A, B, O and AB, and then positive and negative versions of all of those. But when a mother has a negative blood type and the child has a positive blood type, the mother’s body will build up antigens to protect itself. It isn’t a problem for the first child and if the blood differences are picked up quickly then the problem can be avoided entirely. But if the mother doesn’t get treated her body will attack the next child she has if it is also Rh-positive.”

“That sounds… not good.” Lance winced.   
“Yeah, so pretty much after Shiro was born my mum couldn’t risk having any more children so they raised him as an only child until he was eight. He then apparently had a hissy fit because he was the only boy in his friend group without a younger sibling.” Keith laughed.   
“Really?”   
“Yeah, you wouldn't guess it now but Shiro was such a brat when he was little. Unfortunately I was too young to remember most of it but I have clear memory being three and Shiro being eleven and him threatening to ‘have me returned’ if I didn’t tell him where I had hid his homework.”   
“Sounds like you were a brat too.” Lance teased.   
“Yeah, but at least the biggest tantrum I ever threw was for important matters.”   
“What?”   
“My favourite TV show was being cancelled and somehow I was convinced it was Shiro’s fault.” Keith grinned. “Mum caught it all on tape, including me trying to push him down the stairs.”   
“Yep! You were definitely a brat!”   
“What about you?”   
As soon as Keith uttered those words he knew he had made a mistake, Lance’s posture went rigid and his smile became fixed upon his face.   
“Well… I have five sisters, and I was the middle child. I talk to them a lot over the phone and face time but…” Lance gnawed his lip and rubbed his elbow. “I actually grew up with my cousins, and I haven’t seen my sisters in a long time.”   
“Oh. I’m sorry?” Keith gently placed a hand on his shoulder.   
“It’s okay. It’s a complicated situation, but its fine now.” Lance grinned shakily. “Anyway, weren’t you going to show me your music collection?”   
“Okay.” Keith shrugged and handed Lance an earphone. “But don't get your hopes up too much.”   
“As long as you don’t have a Bigfoot playlist, you’ve already exceeded my expectations.”   
“Nope definitely don’t have one of those!” Keith laughed nervously quickly scrolling past his Mothman playlist. 

“What would you actually do if you genuinely met a cryptid?”

The question threw Keith for a second, he had always been focused on finding evidence rather than considering a direct encounter.   
“Depends on the cryptid.” Keith said. “I might try to talk to it, just take photos, run in the other direction…”   
Lance snorted.   
“Hey some cryptids are dangerous!” Keith said defensively. “I know my limits… kinda…”   
“Whatever Mulletman, just show me one of those K-pop songs you keep scrolling past.”   
“Ssh. Let me find something that might actually impress you.”   
“I doubt it.” 

“Where are you taking me?” Keith tried to squint through Lance’s hands, but they were too firmly pressed to his face to see anything.   
“It’s a secret!”   
“If I die, Shiro will find you.” Keith warned.   
“I’d be more worried about Pidge. I can probably outrun Shiro, but Pidge would hunt me down using every resource on the planet.” Lance considered.   
“I’m flattered you think Pidge cares that much about me.”   
“Of course!” Lance said cheekily. “You pay half the rent!”   
“Wow.” Keith said flatly. “I buy the dishwashing soap as well.”   
“A true hero!” Lance laughed. 

“Now look!” 

Lance pulled his hands away from Keith’s eyes, revealing a giant blue arch with ‘BALMERA AQUARIUM’ emblazoned across it.   
“I… um, don’t know if you like aquariums but this is a really nice place and Shay works here so…” Lance shifted nervously when Keith turned to look back at him.   
“Calm down, I like it! It looks really cool.” Keith assured him, reaching for one of his twitching hands.   
“Oh, good. And I’m definitely paying this time!” Lance shouted, squeezing Keith’s hand in warning.   
Keith just laughed and squeezed back, because aquariums were okay but he definitely liked Lance’s smile a lot more. 

“I’m just saying, my fish would totally win in a fight.” Lance traced a bright blue tropical fish through the glass.   
“Fish don’t fight.” Keith frowned. “Besides the red one is faster, and would be able to get more attacks in.”   
“Yeah but it’s smaller and more easily defeated, Blue has more bulk and thus more armour and would be able to take them out soon enough.” Lance argued. 

Oblivious to the pair’s discussion a small red fish swam a few laps around a calm blue fish. 

“See it’s faster!” Keith smirked.   
“Blue is just waiting for the right moment to strike!” Lance defended.   
Eventually the two fish disappeared behind a rock, and the boys were left to watch as a white tip shark swam in front before drifting to the top of tunnel. 

“Well that's the end of the fish. Now comes my favourite part! And Shay!”   
Lance enthusiastically led Keith through the archway to the next section, and despite Keith’s stomach dropping when he read ‘Live Petting Area’ he followed nonetheless.   
“Shay!” Lance waved frantically at a girl standing next to a tank of sea urchins.   
She had short, choppy chestnut hair and warm, brown eyes. When she heard Lance she spun around causing her golden hoop earrings to clink, and a giant grin to break out across her freckled face.   
“Lance! My shy-friend!” Shay picked Lance up into a hug and spun around, eventually holding him out at arms length like a baby. “And you bought someone!”   
“Yeah, this is Keith!” Lance introduced them, seeming not to care his feet weren’t touching the floor.   
“Nice to meet you.” Keith said, unsure whether to shake her hand or not, especially since her arms were currently full of Lance.   
Ultimately Shay made that decision for him, dropping Lance and capturing Keith into a friendly hug. Luckily he was not lifted like Lance, but just from the gentle hug she gave him he could feel her rock-like muscles.   
“Nice to meet you too! I’m so glad my shy-friend is finally talking to someone else whom is not fish or Hunk!” She beamed and released Keith.   
“No problem…?” Keith shrugged and looked at Lance questioningly.   
“Haha, Shay calls me her shy-friend because I was too shy to actually meet her until I was twelve and even then I would occasionally just run from her. From the ages ten to twelve we befriended each other by passing messages through Hunk.” Lance admitted, his face slightly red.  
“That’s adorable.” Keith grinned.   
“Argh, you can’t just…. You’re making me blush!” Lance stammered. “Shay make him hold a sea urchin as punishment!”  
“Holding a sea urchin isn’t punishment.” She said sternly but returned to the tank anyway.   
“Uh… that’s not necessary.” Keith gulped, seeing the spiky ball that just screamed ANGER.   
“Shay, that’s why its punishment.” Lance smirked, nodding his head at Keith’s reaction.   
“Put your hands out Keith.” Shay said warmly, seeming not to care that the urchin was actually squirming in her hands.   
Keith kept his hands at his sides, staring in horror at the sea creature.   
“Please Keith.” Lance begged, turning to him with big, watery eyes.   
Before Keith realised what he was doing, his hands had shot out and a giggling Shay had placed the little creature in his palm.   
The sensation was weird, like it was attempting to suction onto Keith’s hands without actually sticking to the skin, and Keith was pretty sure it was growing in size as he held it.   
“Alright Shay, you better take Consentine back before Keith starts hyperventilating.”   
“That’s AAC.” Shay sniffed. “Consentine has more spikes and is more curious.”   
Regardless Shay took the sea urchin off Keith’s hands, and he frantically wiped his hands as if he could wipe away the weird lingering sensation.   
“Oh boy if the sea urchins freak you out, I can’t wait to see you react to the rest!” Lance grabbed Keith’s wrist and tugged him towards a series of open tanks.   
“See ya Shay!” Lance called, and Keith waved weakly as well.   
“Bye shy-friend! Bye Keith!” Shay smiled and returned AAC (?) to their tank. 

“Now look at this.” Lance demanded, rolling his sleeve up.   
Without waiting for a response he plunged his hand into the fish tank, and instantly every fish in the tank darted over to Lance’s hand and swarmed around it.   
“They’re eating away the dead skin!” Lance giggled. “It tickles!”   
“They’re… they’re eating you?” Keith asked horrified.   
“They're not biting me silly. Its more just cleaning up the stuff that's already fallen off.”   
“I don't trust them.” Keith snapped.   
“They’re fine!” Lance grinned and removed his hand for emphasis.   
Keith then went and snatched Lance’s hand out of the air, for Lance’s own safety.   
Keith’s selfless action went entirely unnoticed when Lance attempted to dunk both of their hands in the tank. 

“I didn't think you were one for snow cones.” Keith commented as Lance pointed out the vendor near the cliff.   
After Shay had politely warned them about disturbing the fish, they had left the aquarium to explore the surrounding beach and picnic area.   
“Why?” A little furrow formed between Lance’s eyebrows and Keith fought the urge to smooth it out.   
“At the coffee shop you said you liked things hot.”   
Lance stumbled and spluttered, and Keith took delight in his panicked expression.   
“Well you said you like things that are cold!” Lance shot back.   
“So you’re doing this for me?” Keith cooed. “That’s so sweet.”   
“Ssh. Just pick a snow cone before I regret it!” Lance slammed the money down on the counter.   
“Well I’ll take red, in memory of my red fish. Which for the record, would’ve totally won in a fight.”   
“Then I’ll take blue, because Blue would’ve absolutely won.”   
“Sure thing.” Keith rolled his eyes and accepted the cone from the vendor and allowed Lance to lead him to a bench overlooking the ocean. 

For a while the two sat enjoying the sun and sea breeze, nibbling on the quickly melting snow cones.   
“Keith!” Lance gasped, twisting his body to look to his left. “There’s a rabbit!”   
Keith leaned over Lance’s shoulder to see a little black bunny, twitching its nose and nibbling on some grass.   
Lance turned around, presumably to check that Keith was looking, but instead brushed his lips against Keith’s unexpectedly close ones.   
Admittedly Keith’s nose was stinging from connecting with Lance’s sharp cheekbone, but he was far more distracted by his tingling mouth. 

“That… was not a great first kiss.” Lance laughed awkwardly.   
“Sorry.” Keith unfroze and shuffled away. “I didn’t expect you turn around and-“   
“No, no, no, no.” Lance gasped. “I was just going to say… we should uh… make a better one?”   
Keith froze again.   
“Too forward?” Lance glanced away quickly. “Sorry I kind of assumed there-“   
Frantically Keith grabbed the front of Lance’s shirt and yanked him down to his level. The messy clash of lips and teeth worked in theory, but when Lance finally responded by cupping a gentle hand under Keith’s jaw and adjusting the angle, the practice was so much better. 

Somewhere around kiss six or seven, Keith yelped and sprang away. Lance instantly removed his hand which had crept up to Keith’s hair, and leant back to give Keith as much space as possible.   
“No, not you!” Keith quickly assured him. “I just forgot I was holding… this.”   
Keith limply waved his now empty paper cone and pointed to a mess of red dye and ice on the ground, inadvertently pointing out the damp trail down the back of his leg that the ice had slid down.   
“Just put it to the side.” Lance murmured his eyes swirling and glowing, and pulled Keith back into what must’ve been number eight. 

“You came back late.” Pidge yawned. “Around five o’clock?”   
“How did you know? You were asleep.” Keith raised an eyebrow but continued stirring the flavour into the instant ramen he had prepared for them.   
“Door alarm told me. So, did the date go well?”   
The blush on Keith’s face said everything.   
“How about the water test?” Pidge smirked.   
“He took me to an aquarium. It was great! But a total failure of the water test.” Keith sighed.   
“I can’t believe you're convincing me of a connection.” Pidge said before shooting Keith a suspicious look.   
“Hey… Why is your mouth purple?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think this has been the most fun chapter to write thus far, and probably one of the longest. The next few chapters are going to be exciting as well but they might be in more parts because I have some things planned but I've gotten into the habit of daily updates and I don't want to break it!!


	11. Fuck you and your dislike of coloured sugar

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Some angst, some gym work and some cliches.  
> Warnings: semi-flashbacks, Rwandan genocide (literally just mentioned in a uni class).

The first thing Keith awoke to was not his usual alarm, but his heart beating erratically and humid air swirling lazily in the room. Stumbling out of bed he lunged for the little dehumidifier plugged into the wall, and switched it on. 

Keith hated humidity for a number of reasons, from purely vain reasons of making his hair frizz, to hating the sensation of it clogging his throat and forcing its way down to his stomach where it roiled and searched until memories of visible heat radiating off cars emerged. 

When the humidity got too high all Keith could do was lie on the floor, a long stripe of scar tissue across his chest burning, his entire right side pulsing with pain like a heartbeat and the warped tune of ‘MMMBop’ echoing in his ears. 

 

Eventually the humidity faded and the sun had arisen over the horizon, but Keith still had two hours before his alarm went off. When he peeled himself off his position on the floor, several bones cracked and popped. Keith resisted the urge to yell at them, he was twenty years old and didn’t need any of his joints giving out early. A little voice whispered the bone pain was his fault, but Keith knew better than to listen to that voice, it had been saying the same thing since he was two years old and its lack of creativity was the major annoyance by this point. 

But there was only one Shiro-approved and Keith-accepted way of dealing with pain and turmoil, which was working out until endorphins overwhelmed you and you were too tired to feel unhappy anyway. 

Keith barely remembered packing his bag and driving Red to the local gym, but before he knew it he was sitting on the rowing machine, one foot strapped in and the other bracing himself on the floor so he could lean forward and adjust the damper setting to the highest point. 

Someone had once given Keith advice on rowing, they were the stereotypical gym trainer with $200 shoes and black sunglasses, but they had a self-destructive streak Keith immediately identified with. 

“You need to differentiate between a workout on the rower, and a workout with the rower. A workout with the rower is a few sprints in dispersed with other exercises, a workout on a rower is rowing as many kilometres as you can before you can’t go any further. And if you’re any good at it, your hands should give out before the rest of you.” 

At the time Keith didn’t understand, but now he knew exactly how to turn his callouses back into blisters and only pull away when they threatened to break. Only then did he acknowledge the rasp in his chest from dragging in air and the subsequent muscle burn from the exercise. 

 

“Here.” Pidge waved something under his nose and Keith shot up.  
“Is that an iced mocha breve?”  
“Yes, with sprinkles, because fuck you and your dislike of coloured sugar.”  
“Just hard coloured sugar.” Keith corrected. “Fairy floss is fine, but sprinkles…”  
Nonetheless he accepted the cup and took a long sip, ignoring how another student glared at him for the subsequent shriek of the straw against the lid. 

“Where did you go this morning anyway?” Pidge frowned.  
“The gym? Where else would I come back from in sweaty gym clothes?”  
“Whatever weirdo, just stay awake and help me take notes on…” Pidge squinted at the PowerPoint the professor had sent to them in advance. “…Guhahamuka?”  
“Guhahamuka is an example of how even symptoms for mental health diseases are affected by an individuals culture. Guhahamuka is thought to be a Rwandan version of Western PTSD that was particularly prevalent after the Rwandan genocide of 1994.”  
“How do you even memorise random facts like that?” Pidge gaped at him.  
“How do you code endlessly and engineer things?”  
“Its kinaesthetic learning, its tangible and easily practiced. Do you practice saying random facts in front of a mirror every morning?”  
“I say them at you, you offer the same intelligent response as a mirror.”  
“I’ll show you an intelligent response!” Pidge growled and tried to snatch Keith’s coffee, but he held it out of their reach despite their attempts to catch it until the professor walked in. 

It seemed that a new pattern was forming specifically for Keith’s psychology classes, he’d be tired, it would rain and Lance would show up. But instead of it being a massive storm and Lance needing urgent medical attention, it was a light sprinkle and Lance’s presence was accompanied by a large yellow umbrella. 

“Hey there Mulletman.” Lance greeted. “It was raining and my class just finished, so I thought I’d just wait in case you didn't have an umbrella.”  
Wordlessly Keith slipped underneath the umbrella and wrapped his arms around Lance’s waist.  
“You’re so goddamn cheesy and thoughtful.” Keith muttered into Lance’s neck.  
“Aw, you love it.” Lance snorted and pressed a light kiss to Keith’s hair.  
“Urgh, get a room guys, you can’t be this cute in broad daylight!” Pidge made a vomiting noise.  
“Well I’d be more than happy to take Keith somewhere dark, just the two of us…” Lance whispered.  
“Before Keith takes you up on that offer, he needs to cook dinner tonight so like, after seven.” Pidge interjected.  
“Keith, I’m so sorry but I can’t deprive Pidge of dinner. They need it to grow.” Lance sighed.  
“Hey!” Pidge growled. “I need it to extract my vengeance.”  
Keith was feeling warm and content nuzzled against Lance’s throat, but couldn’t help but burst out laughing when he felt Lance gulp. 

“Either way.” Lance said nervously. “There’s enough room for three underneath here, so I can shelter you guys back to your apartment.”  
“A true hero.” Keith said dryly finally extracting himself from Lance.  
“I’m going to regret this aren’t I?” Pidge said darkly. 

“The next person to kiss the other over the top of my head is going to get my elbow buried in a painful place.” Pidge snarled, gripping the bottom of the umbrella handle to drag them forward.  
“I just can’t help it when something so wonderful is placed in front of me.” Lance sighed.  
“Keith stop blushing, and Lance stop flirting before I un-invite you to dinner.”  
“Wait I’m invited?” Lance startled.  
“As of now, yes. But you better be on your best behaviour, young man.” Pidge snapped.  
“Wait.” Keith stopped dead. “Lance is coming to our apartment?”  
“Well unless we’re stealing someone else’s for the night, yes.” Pidge replied.  
“Is that okay?” Lance looked worried and was shifting away to give Keith more room, whilst still tipping the umbrella to make sure Keith was fully covered.  
“Y-yeah definitely! But uh… we’re low on… food. Pidge why don't you go get some more and I’ll go back and uh… turn on the lights?”  
“Keith, our apartment isn’t that messy.” Pidge raised an eyebrow.  
“Haha, well you go take all the time you need and I’ll be the judge of that!” Keith quickly sprinted away into the rain, because there was no way in hell Keith was letting Lance see his conspiracy board.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Today's chapter is a bit short because we went to visit my grandparents who live in the literal mountains, saw my cousins new eight-week old Newfoundland puppy, played monopoly for 3-4 hours, fell down a flight of stairs and baked six cakes. I also did grocery shopping because I s2g all we had was avocado I think that was becoming sentient.  
> It was actually a good day but I'm exhausted now so I'm going to sleep


	12. What. The. Actual. Heck?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Keith cleans, Shiro attempts to intimidate and Lance is given an education.

Keith was never one for excessive mess. Sure, more often than not he’d drop clothes on the floor, but they’d be kicked into neat piles that would eventually be sorted by the end of the week. But considering that Lance was visiting, the apartment suddenly looked like a train wreck to Keith’s eyes. 

It was with a few curses that Keith ripped down the conspiracy board notes and shoved them in a suitcase that was stored underneath the bed. Unfortunately the new notes made the packing process longer, and by the time he finished Pidge and Lance would’ve definitely started shopping. 

The cleanliness of Keith’s room was looking to be a lost but socially acceptable cause, so he shut the door and decided to focus on the living room. 

Keith then faced his next challenge, Pidge’s robotic parts strewn across the living room. This was forbidden territory, the specialised robotics were Pidge’s main source of income and the tiniest piece could be ridiculously expensive or important and misplacing it would have serious consequences. Either way Keith had to do something, so whilst he didn’t touch the parts he carefully packed away all the tools. Besides it was a difficult task to mess up, considering each spot was shaped for the specific tool and labels confirmed this.   
It had been roughly forty minutes of Keith frantically plumping cushions, opening windows, and dusting off random ornaments when Keith decided to approach the kitchen. 

Usually Keith spent so little time in the kitchen (bar that one enforced time-out in the pantry), so he barely noticed the mess. But there were three days of dishes stacked in the sink, a thick layer of grime and ramen flavour dust coated the counter, and a brief check in the fridge revealed several mouldy vegetables that looked due to gain sentience at any second. 

The counter was the biggest problem, Keith could just imagine Lance leaning over to make some snide remark on Keith’s cooking and drumming his perfect fingers on the mysterious substance. And knowing how much Lance dedicated to self-care, he’d probably be so horrified by the gunk on his nails he’d refuse to ever see Keith again and break off whatever semi-relationship they were forming. 

Thankfully Keith knew that some cleaning supplies had been passive-aggressively stored in the bathroom by Shiro, so it was a quick trip to the other side of the apartment to find some mysterious unlabelled cleaning products, and one full, untouched bottle of Windex. 

Time was running out and Keith was understandably stressed when returning to the kitchen. 

“Hey Keith-“ At the sound of the door rattling just a metre away from him, Keith shrieked and instinctively sprayed Windex at the intruder.   
“What. The. Actual. Heck?” Shiro growled.   
“Oh, it’s just you.” Keith sighed and continued to the kitchen.   
“Please tell me that was water.” Shiro slammed the door and followed Keith into the kitchen.   
“It was water. There, I told you.” Keith sprayed the surface, and prayed that it was mixture and not the grime bubbling.   
“It was Windex, wasn’t it?” Shiro groaned and scrubbed his face clean with a wet rag.   
“Perhaps.”   
“Why are you always like this?” Shiro frowned. “I come to help you clean before your boyfriend comes over and you attack me with Windex!?”   
“He’s not my boyfriend!” Keith spluttered.   
Shiro raised an eyebrow.   
“Not yet anyway.” Keith admitted. “But how did you know any of this anyway?”   
“Pidge texted me.”   
“Well I’ve got this handled! You can go home!” Keith snarled, rubbing furiously at a spot of curry flavour powder.   
“The picture of mothman on top of the microwave is new.” Shiro commented. “Who framed it? You or Pidge?”   
“Oh god. I’m too used to cryptid ornaments, Shiro I will bring you good coffee on your next twenty hour shift if you find everything and hide it.”   
“Sold.” Shiro’s eyes brightened and he grabbed the framed mothman, Chupacabra saltshaker and Nessie candle. 

It was an hour and forty-five minutes later that Pidge and Lance walked through the font door, struggling with several bags of groceries but laughing and talking softly to each other. 

A bitter taste settled in Keith’s mouth, but he knew it was stupid because Pidge had no interest, in their words, ‘the foolish men that roam the world.’ When they had said that Keith had asked if they would seduce an alien, and now Pidge and him had a chart hidden away somewhere listing the pros and cons of fucking an alien. 

Either way Keith was torn between being jealous and being annoyed at his own emotions, this changed when Lance almost dropped the groceries to approach Keith.   
“Hey you.” Lance affectionately brushed a strand of hair out of Keith’s face.   
“Hey.” Keith murmured and leant into Lance’s hand.   
“Hello.” Shiro called from the sink, his eyes narrowing at Lance.   
“Uh hi, you’re buff guy- I mean Keith’s brother.” Lance gulped and took a few steps back from Keith.   
“Yes I’m Keith’s brother.” Shiro scrubbed the grime off a steak knife stacked in the sink. “And you are?”   
“Shiro stop, please.” Keith begged.   
“We’ll talk later.” Shiro promised and returned to washing dishes like a suburban mother, rather than the intimidating cage fighter he had been for a year. 

Lance seemed slightly shaken by Shiro’s animosity, so Keith led Lance to the only couch unoccupied by Pidge or their supplies and shyly linked their hands.   
“Keith you touched my tools, so you’re dead to me.” Pidge snapped. “Shiro, what’s for dinner?”   
“Roast chicken breast with mashed potato and steamed green beans.” Shiro answered, washing his hands free of the suds. “The potatoes are boiling, the beans are steaming and the chicken is in the oven so we just have to wait.”   
“Ugh, I’m hungry now. Can’t you hack time or something and make it ready now?” Pidge whined, flopping onto the couch.   
“Out of all of us you’re the most qualified to be hackerman.” Shiro snorted.   
“It’s hacking time.” Keith paused from rubbing circles into the back of Lance’s hand, to grin and quote the infamous movie.   
In response Pidge hummed a few bars to the Hackerman song. 

Lance looked entirely confused.   
“Am I… Am I missing something?” Lance softly whispered in Keith’s ear.   
“Yeah, we’re just quoting a movie called Kung Fury. Have you ever seen it?” Keith asked and Lance shook his head.   
Unfortunately this movement caught Pidge’s eye.   
“What? You’ve never seen Kung Fury?” Pidge gasped.   
The clang of a dropped fork from the kitchen expressed Shiro’s shock as well.   
“Unacceptable! We’re watching it right fucking now!” Pidge declared and sprung for the TV remote.   
“Language Pidge!” Shiro sighed. “But can you turn it up so I can hear?”   
“Yes I fucking can.” Pidge smirked.   
Shiro just let out a drawn out groan.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you haven't seen the movie Kung Fury you definitely should! It's 30mins of the equivalent of a movie shitpost and I love it. Tomorrow I'll probably be a bit busy so the chapter will be shorter but it'll be pretty fluffy :)   
> also feel free to point out any typos/mistakes because I've found a few in earlier chapters and I don't take any offence about people pointing them out, its actually better because then I can go and fix them!! :D


	13. It was slightly bitterly but mostly with a sense of being content

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Just some fluff of the two boys having a nice movie night.

Watching Kung Fury led to watching a few UFO documentaries, Parks and Rec, Hercules and so many other films that they all blurred together. Towards the end Keith stopped paying attention to the movies entirely and just watched Lance’s face. 

The only light in the room was the soft blue glow coming off the TV, which flickered along the sharp edges of Lance’s chin and jawline and illuminated his eyes. Lance’s eyes weren’t quite swirling like the sea, but instead let out the occasional ripple like the calm tide of a lake. Despite the relative tranquillity of Lance’s eyes, Keith could feel himself drowning in them, rescued only by the occasional blink and flutter of long lashes. Eventually Lance’s eyes slid closed and his mouth dropped open, and he was silent apart from the occasional whistling breath. 

At some point during the movies Lance had laid down and despite the warning stare from Shiro, had invited Keith to lie down next to him. Keith had accepted and for a long time the two had laid awkwardly next to each other, tightly pressed shoulder to shoulder to both fit on the couch. But after one particularly hard laughing fit had nearly sent Lance teetering on the edge, Keith shifted onto his side so his chest pressed into Lance’s shoulder. The rest of the movements were lost to Keith, but now Lance had one arm wrapped around Keith’s shoulders to draw him close and Keith had one leg swung over Lance’s hips. 

Lance muttered something in his sleep, a language that Keith couldn’t quite decipher but sounded vaguely Spanish but fluctuated a note every few words. Maybe it was a specific dialect or just Lance’s mind struggling to form coherent sentences. Either way, Keith was surprised when Lance whispered his name. 

It was rough and slipped out through gritted teeth. As if the word gave Lance some power, he squeezed Keith’s side tighter and the arm that was dangling off the couch swung up to grip Keith’s hand that was bunched up in his shirt. Keith relinquished his grip on Lance’s shirt and carefully twisted his wrist until he was able to link their hands together. 

Immediately Lance’s expression smoothed and his little birthmarks became visible again as they emerged from the deep furrows of his face. He whispered Keith’s name again, but it was softer and happier. 

As much as Keith wanted to stare at Lance’s face all night, the warmth of Lance’s embrace was slowly slowing Keith’s heartbeat and causing his eyelids to droop. It was slightly bitterly but mostly with a sense of being content that Keith surrendered to sleep.   
Just before Keith closed his eyes for the final time he felt Lance move and rest his cheek to the top of his head. It was surely an uncomfortable position particularly when Lance turned his face fully into Keith’s hair, but feeling the little smile pressed to his head Keith decided that as long as Lance didn’t suffocate in his hair, he was fine.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is mostly filler but its a bit of a buffer for the next chapter which is probably going to be short too, but angsty and reveal some more back story of some characters.


	14. Nightmare in Shiro Town

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Pidge get's a call, Keith goes fast and Shiro has a bad time.  
> See notes for translations.

It was 6:08 and Keith was once again reminded how cheap his apartment building was, he’d usually remember when the leaking vents increased humidity, when turning on the TV and flushing the toilet temporarily shorted out electricity or when Pidge’s bedroom door jammed and trapped them in there until they were awake enough to unscrew the bolts of the door. 

But this time Keith was reminded by facing the ‘OUT OF ORDER’ sign next to the elevator whilst the doors remained wide open, with only a solitary traffic cone to ward people off. Keith then learnt that on half the stairs of the second floor there was some unidentified liquid sinking into the carpet, and from the stench Keith knew he definitely didn’t want it on his shoes. This led to some Spiderman like manoeuvres off the railings until he reached the third floor. From there the fourth floor was a relatively uneventful short walk, but after stepping into his apartment Keith wondered if he had walked into the wrong place or accidently stepped into an alternative universe yet again. 

Pidge stood in the middle of the room, completely still apart from the occasional nod and ‘mm’ they made talking to the other person on the phone. This was bizarre behaviour for Pidge, whom usually paced or fiddled with something whilst sassing the other person on speakerphone. The soberness of the event startled Keith, and he stood in the doorway until Pidge finished talking. 

“Keith.” Pidge turned to him biting their lip. “Matt just called. You should probably go check on Shiro.”  
“What happened?”  
“A kid died in ER today, from a head injury. Matt isn’t sure but Shiro was there and is taking it particularly hard.”  
“I’ll be back later.” Keith swallowed the bile that rose in his throat and ran down the stairs, leaping over the steps on the second floor and most of the steps down to the garage just for speed. 

Keith had to repeatedly make sure that he wasn’t going ridiculously over the speed limit, but he knew that he couldn’t stop himself from speeding through a few yellow lights and pushing Red around sharp corners. 

It was roughly ten minutes away that Keith felt his phone vibrate against his leg. It wasn’t that Keith didn’t have many friends, but not many that actually called him and even less at this time of night. So when Keith pulled over to answer it, his hands were shaking so badly he almost dropped it. 

“Keith are you there?” Matt’s voice sounded tense.  
That was a warning sign in itself, usually whenever Matt called his voice was almost inaudible from whatever music he decided to blast in his apartment or the general racket from his attempts at cooking or mixing drinks. 

“Yeah. I’m about ten minutes away. What’s going on?” 

“Shiro has locked himself in his room and won’t respond, but before he went he was muttering something about needing to clean and change bandages.” Matt voice was low, and Keith could hear him drumming his fingers against a hard surface. 

“I’ll be there in five.” Keith promised and hung up.

After that the only thing faster on the road than Red was Keith’s own nervous hammering heartbeat. 

Matt opened the door as soon as Keith made his first knock, they barely nodded at each other before Keith was at Shiro’s door.  
“Takashi, you there?” Keith tried with a soft knock.  
There was only a slight shuffling noise, but no response. With a deep breath Keith tried again.  
“Ani, kotaete kudasai.”  
“… Otouto?” A hoarse voice whispered from inside.  
“Hai. Anata no heya ni haitte moiidesuka?”  
“… okay.” 

The door clicked unlocked and slowly swung open, revealing Shiro staring at his feet with glazed eyes and his prosthetic half taken off.  
“I’m coming in now.” Keith stepped inside the room and quietly shut the door.  
Shiro barely responded when Keith led him to the side of the bed and sat him down so his back leaned against the frame.  
Keith had never been good at comforting someone, but at least he was used to this and knew what had upset Shiro unlike the poor Holts. 

“It’s been four years Takashi, everything is fine.” Keith gently rested a hand on Shiro’s shoulder.  
Shiro just made a garbled noise and rubbed his temples with his remaining hand.  
“Do you remember? I woke up three days later, and there were no complications.”  
Shiro’s eyes squeezed shut in pain, but Keith barrelled through.  
“The stiches only broke once, because I was washing my hair a little aggressively. Remember? And you were right there and cleaned it all out and restitched it. There were no problems after that and there is only the faintest scar now.”  
Shiro wasn’t getting worse, but he wasn’t getting any better either.  
“When that stupid lady came by, we spent the entire day cleaning. You were so anxious about being declared unfit that you took every beer in the fridge and poured it down the sink, and you even dusted the light bulbs for fucks sake.” Keith reached forward and pulled Shiro’s hand away from his face and held it with his own.  
“… Did it work?” Shiro murmured.  
“Of course it did, once you told me what was going on I transferred schools and cleaned my act up. I was getting the top marks and you cried at my graduation, remember?”  
“Yeah, a lady offered me a tissue and you got mad because I was embarrassing.”  
“You still are.” Keith sighed. “But it doesn’t matter. You’re okay and I’m okay, that’s all that matters.”  
Wordlessly Shiro pulled him into a one armed hug, and Keith returned it feeling his strong older brother shudder from the memories of Keith’s brush with death and the foster care system. 

It was half an hour later that Keith finally pulled away with a sheepish smile.  
“I should probably text Pidge to let them know everything is okay and remind them to eat.”  
“Go ahead.” Shiro went to wave Keith’s concern off with his prosthetic, and seemed puzzled when nothing responded. Keith quickly reached over to where it lay near the door and handed the prosthetic to Shiro.  
“Thanks.” Shiro mumbled. 

(Keith): Hey Pidge, everything is fine and Shiro is alright. I’m going to stay over in case anything happens. Don’t forget to eat. 

(Pidge): Thank god, and dw just make sure you set ur alarm early enough if you plan on going to uni. Do you mind if I tell Matt? 

(Keith): Nah go ahead. You still haven’t responded to my reminder to eat something tho. 

(Pidge) Fuck you.  
Attached: Toasted_Cheese_Sandwich_With_Tomato.jpeg. 

(Keith): Is that off Google? 

(Pidge): NO.  
Attached: Toasted_Cheese_Sandwich_With_Tomato_AND_PIDGE.jpeg.

(Keith): Ew, don't send me pictures of you chewing with your mouth open. 

(Pidge): FUCK OFF. 

The peaceful silence was interrupted by some horrific dubstep remix of ‘Single Ladies’, blasting so loudly that Shiro dropped his prosthetic and Keith dropped his phone in shock. 

“I see Matt got the message that I’m alright.” Shiro sighed. “Could you possibly go out and convince him I’m actually not okay and he needs to stop blasting music?”  
“Your roommate, your problem.” Keith grinned and proceeded to set an alarm for university the next morning

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay translation of the Japanese (be mindful I'm not fluent in Japanese but I'm pretty sure these are right, if they're not please correct me!) 
> 
> Ani, kotaete kudasai = (older) brother, please answer.  
> … Otouto? = ... (younger) brother?  
> Hai. Anata no heya ni haitte moiidesuka = Yes. Am I allowed to enter/go into your room? 
> 
> This probably won't be ever fully explained so I'll do a quick summary now:  
> When Keith was 16 he was getting into lots of fights of school and one fight led him to be pushed down a flight of stairs and hit his head at the bottom, he sustained a severe head injury and the force created a cut in the back of his head. Keith remained unconscious for three days but woke up with out any complications except for the stitches breaking once in the shower (which Shiro fixed).  
> Shiro had only been declared Keith's guardian two years prior, and the child protection agency worried that the increased fighting which led to Keith's injury was a result of Shiro's negligence. For a few weeks after that they were often investigated and once Keith realised what was going on, he transferred schools and fully focussed on academics to ensure that Shiro wouldn't be declared unfit.  
> Having a young boy die from a similar head injury in ER whilst Shiro was already tense (a long shift and worry about Keith's new boyfriend) set him off and triggered a panic attack.


	15. There was an accident involving a fountain?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Pidge has places to be, Hunk is the best bro and things get a little heated.

When Keith awoke he was aware of three things, the warmth of his blankets carefully burritoed around him, the sensation of slowly sinking in the mattress and someone yelling. 

“WAKE UP KOGANE!! WE’RE GOING TO THE BEACH!!” 

The third thing didn’t seem so important, definitely not in contrast to the bed.

“Keith, Jesus Fuck! Get up right now or there will be consequences!” 

Keith burrowed his face deeper into the pillow, it was warm and supported his chin perfectly. There was something about consequences… consequences meant trouble, which was a board game. Keith didn’t mind board games, just as long as people were actually participating and it didn’t just get ignored half the time. 

The door creaked open. Keith wasn’t surprised, he had a roommate after all. They must’ve wanted to borrow something and not bother him. His roommate was nice, he liked his roommate. 

His roommate pulled the blankets off his feet, which was rude, but not too bad.  
“Pid-“ Keith began to mutter but quickly screeched, jumped slightly and hugged his feet to his chest. 

“What the fuck??” Keith screamed now wide-awake.   
“I told you there would be consequences.” Pidge sniffed, turning the sparking device off. “And chill, it wasn’t anything like a real Taser. It was more of a joke buzzer.”   
“I nearly died.” Keith hissed. “Dear god I think my heart rate just went from sixty to two hundred.”   
“Yeah well now you’re awake, we can go to the beach.”   
“Why?”   
“Why not?”   
“Because neither of us like the beach, it’s hot and neither of us LIKE the beach!”  
“Says you, I’ve turned over a new leaf. I’m all about that sun… uh… sand and waves.”   
“I don’t like sand.” Keith groaned and hugged a pillow to his chest to bury his face in it. “Can I go back to sleep?”   
“Shut up Anakin Edge-lord, and be ready to leave in half-an-hour or I’ll send Lance that one pic.”   
“What picture?” Keith snorted. “One of my baby photos? I was goddamn cute.”   
“You know, that one photo. Where you’re thirteen and going through a scene phase, and you’re wearing a choker and you’re pissed because the bands on your braces are clear and not black.”   
“… I’ll be ready in fifteen.” 

“So what do you actually want to do here?” Keith lifted an eyebrow.   
“I didn’t think this far ahead.” Pidge admitted, shaking their fluffy locks free of the motorcycle helmet.  
“I just wanted to check out this beach, apparently there’s some really interesting stuff here.”   
“Stuff? Are we talking about food, cute animals or something else?”   
“Let’s go to the rock pools.” Pidge sighed. “Maybe I’ll find something cool.”   
“Put some sunscreen on first.” Keith demanded. “And some sunglasses, and a hat.”   
“I’m an adult Keith, I can handle myself.” Pidge groaned.   
“I’m aware, but last time you got burnt Matt somehow found out and threatened to come over and put my phone in the toaster if it happened again.”   
“Creative.” Pidge hummed, but accepted the snapback Keith shoved on their head.   
“You better put on some sunscreen as well.” Pidge tutted and swiped a line across the bridge of Keith’s nose.   
“No way, I’m planning on staying in the shade until you finish frolicking through the rocks.”   
“Nuh uh.” Pidge frowned. “What if I get kidnapped?”   
“I’m sure you have at least five weapons on you right now. If you get kidnapped, then they’ll regret it.”   
“Please?” Pidge pouted. “I just don’t want to go into an isolated area alone, I can only run so fast.”   
“Fine.” Keith regretfully smeared the sunscreen across the rest of his face. “Why are you so convinced you’re going to get attacked anyway?”   
“A healthy dose of paranoia never did anyone wrong!” Pidge said cheerfully, swinging their backpack up onto their shoulders and marching away. 

“I’m just saying Pidge, those old cartoons are unrealistic and all the manoeuvres are a lie. There are no seatbelts and death is inevitable.”   
“Suction suits.” Pidge said smugly, examining a small rock.   
“Then wouldn’t they stick to everything?”   
“Seat specific suction su-“   
“Is that Hunk?” Keith interrupted.   
“Hm? Oh yeah! Hey Hunk!” Pidge yelled. 

The man in question jumped at the sudden calling of his name, kicking a few rocks into the ocean below as he did so.   
Recognising the two smaller figures he waved back, grabbing the belongings strewn around him and stuffing them into a bag before jogging over to them.   
“What’s up guys?” Hunk smiled.   
“Nothing much, Pidge just dragged me out here to look at rocks.” Keith cocked his head at the bulging bag Hunk carried. “What’s in there?”   
“Just clothes.” Hunk said nonchalantly. “What sort of rocks are you looking for Pidge?”   
“Anything really, I’m thinking of breaking the rocks down and testing them to see what their elemental composition is.” Pidge explained.   
“Well there should be some particularly sodium rich ones where I was standing.” Hunk grinned. “The sea sprays up so the rocks have more salt caked on.”   
“Hm, does that have any effect on any of the other elements? Does the increased sodium reduce the chloride levels within the rock itself?” Pidge questioned. 

Keith privately tuned out, whilst he had done Chemistry in high school and wasn’t half-bad at it, he was never a fan of actively applying it to his surroundings. 

Luckily the area that the two decided to go rock-hunting in was shaded by an old dock, but the rocks were still pleasantly warm and flat. Keith stretched out and looked up occasionally to ensure the two were safe. 

Originally the list contained; make sure Pidge isn’t burning, the two of them aren’t standing too close to the edge, they haven’t picked up anything that’s mysteriously threatening… 

Keith should’ve realised he was falling asleep when his list shortened to: Both of them haven’t fallen in the ocean yet. 

But by that point, Keith had curled up on some surprisingly nice rocks and shut his eyes. 

For the second time that day, Keith was given a rude awakening. Something cold dripped on his cheek and ran down his neck, and he could distinctly feel someone hovering over his body. Without even opening his eyes Keith grabbed the forearms positioned near his shoulders and wrapped his legs around the stranger’s hips and flipped them. 

The stranger beneath him barely struggled, and instead let out a nervous giggle. Slowly blinking his eyes open Keith stared at the body he had pined against his. 

“Lance?” Keith breathed.   
“H-heya Keith.” Lance’s face was bright red and his eyes darted between Keith’s face and the ground next to him.   
“S-sorry.” Keith released Lance’s hands and sat up. “You surprised me.”   
“It’s fine. I didn’t mind it.” Lance grinned and sat up, hooking an arm around Keith’s waist to keep him in his current position on Lance’s lap with his legs wrapped around his hips. 

“Oh.” Keith blushed as Lance leant in closer.   
“Do you mind if I kiss you?” Lance’s forehead was almost touching Keith’s and his swirling blue eyes were fixated solely on his lips.   
Keith nodded slightly, just enough to rest his forehead on Lance’s.   
One of Lance’s hands gripped the back of Keith’s hair and tugged him closer, his lips nudging at Keith’s until he tilted his head correctly and Lance hummed against Keith’s mouth. Keith looped his arms around Lance’s neck, leaning back slightly so Lance had to chase him.   
“You’re such a tease.” Lance growled and kissed up and down Keith’s jawline, unable to reach his mouth at the correct angle.   
“You want a tease?” Keith smirked and gently pressed a chaste kiss Lance’s throat, feeling him shudder in response.   
“Do you like this?” Keith asked innocently, kissing his way down to Lance’s collarbone.   
“M-maybe.” Lance’s breath caught as Keith opened his mouth a little more and teeth scraped the skin.   
“Would you like me to go further?” Keith murmured.   
“Don’t stop.” Lance gasped. 

Spurred on by the husky tone to his voice Keith bit down lightly and quickly closed the rest of his mouth around the mark, Lance wheezed and dragged his fingernails through Keith’s hair leaving a long pink mark down the back of his neck. There was the faint taste of salt in Keith’s mouth, but he couldn’t tell whether it was from Lance’s skin, lips or just the air they were breathing in. But Keith soon became distracted by other sensations, like Lance’s babbling as he created more marks to frame his neck, Lance’s hand moving down with his thumb massaging his lower back and his other fingers dropping lower, and Pidge and Hunk coughing loudly and aggressively. 

“Guys!” Pidge eventually shouted. “We’re on a public beach! Tone it down a notch Jesus!”   
Quickly Keith jerked away from Lance, just in time to catch Hunk wince at the smacking noise of Keith’s mouth disconnecting from Lance’s neck. Shrinking slightly in embarrassment Keith turned back to Lance, only to make eye contact with swirling half-lidded eyes. 

“Alright kids, that’s enough bedroom eyes!” Pidge announced. “You’re my ride home, so you can resume this another time when I’m not forced to awkwardly wait.”   
“Sorry Pidge.” Keith pulled away from Lance. “I got carried away.”   
“I don’t care Keith. Do that sort of stuff whenever you like, except you know, when you’re preventing me from leaving or doing anything else.” Pidge rolled their eyes.   
“Okay, okay!” Keith laughed. “We’re leaving!”   
“I’ll see you later then.” Lance smiled and raised one tentative hand to his neck.   
“Haha, yeah bye see you!” Keith yelled and grabbed Pidge. 

 

“I still can’t believe you gave him over ten hickies.” Pidge giggled from the couch.  
“Me either!” Keith groaned. “I completely lost track of time, I have no idea how long we were making out for!”   
“At least forty minutes.” Pidge estimated, reaching for a screwdriver that Keith handed to them.   
“He only spent about five trying to wake you up nicely.”   
“Nicely?” Keith snorted. “He dripped water all over my face!”   
“Kinky.” Pidge said, carefully twisting some wires.   
“Wait Pidge.” Keith paused. “Why was Lance’s hair wet?”   
“What?”   
“He didn’t go swimming right? And he was fully clothed and dry, so why was his hair wet?”   
“He had a shower? He dunked his head in the sink? There was an accident involving a fountain?”   
“This is not a coincidence, none of this is…” Keith frowned. “But I don’t know what this is at all.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Gonna be real, this was my first time writing an explicit kiss. Everything else I've written has only been a few sentences and banter. Please give me feedback if it was too long/weird/bad choice of words/whatever, I take 0 offence to critique because it helps me understand what can be improved!!! :) 
> 
> Also I've just been blown away by the sheer amount of kudos, bookmarks, subscriptions and comments for this fic. Thank you so much to everyone who has given me support thus far, and I hope that this fic continues to meet your expectations or its still enjoyable!! Thank you again <3


	16. That stupid misspelt sentence

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Keith's the day goes from good to bad, Pidge was actually being nice and Shiro has good instincts.   
> Warning: mentions of bad relationships, homophobia and cheating.

The morning started off relatively well, Keith spent the first five minutes simply stretching in the small patches of sun in his bedroom whilst reminiscing of his dream. His dream had been pretty tame considering it contained Lance, but they had simply held each other and talked softly, but before he had woken up Dream-Keith had gotten up and eaten one of his gloves. In retrospect, only the first part of dream was enjoyable. 

Following that Keith had sent a message to Lance and prepared breakfast, now five hours later Keith couldn’t help but reread his messages and wonder if he had done something wrong. 

(Keith): Hey Lance! 

(Keith): You there? 

(Keith): Just text me back whenever you get this. 

“You’ve been staring at your phone for three hours now.” Pidge paused in their tweaking of Rover to stare at Keith.   
“No I haven’t been, I’ve been studying.” Keith pointed at his physics textbook in defence.   
“Just because you have a textbook in front of you doesn’t mean you’re actually studying.” Pidge snorted.   
“I’m studying alright!” Keith hissed.   
Pidge shrank back, hurt flashing in their eyes and refocusing on Rover.   
“I… I’m sorry.” Keith groaned. “I’m being dick, but I’m just worried I’ve done something wrong.”   
“I’m sure it’s fine Keith.” Pidge put down Rover and shuffled across the couch to bump knees with him. “Now what’s going on?” 

“I’m being ridiculous. Its just Lance always responds quickly… and now he’s not. And I’m worried that maybe he’s upset with me for the hickies or something else… or I just don't know.”   
“Well, you’re right. This is unusual for Lance, but it probably has nothing to do with you.” Pidge said carefully before scrunching their nose. “And those hickies? Lance looked really into it, so I wouldn’t worry about that.”   
“Okay.” Keith mumbled.   
“Wanna watch X-Files?” Pidge grinned. “We can research their conspiracies afterwards.”   
Keith simply nodded. 

Despite Pidge’s attempt at a distraction, Keith couldn’t stop his stomach from churning and checking his phone every five minutes. Keith’s anxiety was heightened by the weather of all things, he was not one to believe in pathetic fallacy but the intervals of darkness and rain in between the bouts of sunshine did not bode well. Not even Pidge helping him add notes to the reconstructed ‘LANCE IS A CRYPTID’ board helped him calm down, it only resulted in Keith being more anxious about why this cryptid wasn’t texting him. 

When Keith finally received the message he almost wished he hadn’t. 

(Lance): can’t talk rn. Famiyl businesss. 

Keith knew what ‘Family Business’ was, he had his first experience with it when he was thirteen and his first kind of girlfriend Emma claimed to have a relative’s birthday every weekend and couldn’t go out on dates with him. Two months and some confusing MySpace messages later she broke up with him because she thought he didn’t find her attractive and he was always looking at other people. Emma was right, but at that point in time Keith didn’t even know that. 

‘Family Business’ arose again when his best friend of two years suddenly couldn’t hang out with him and slowly distanced himself during lunchtimes. This time was easier and Keith figured out pretty quickly that Jordon didn’t want to be associated with him after Keith started dating his first boyfriend. 

The most notable experience of ‘Family Business’ was when Keith was seventeen and thought he had met the one. The one was charming, sweet and intelligent, and was a little rough when Keith lost his virginity to him, but at the time they had both blamed it on inexperience. 

Despite Shiro thinking that he was bad news, and having never moved on from his first intimidation attempt, Keith spent most Saturdays with him. This was because he always visited his Grandmother in her nursing home on Fridays and Sundays. 

On one of these Saturdays whilst the one was in the shower, Keith noticed that some oatmeal cookies cooling on the countertop. He asked the one’s mother if they were for the Grandmother, since the one had sworn that she inhaled them like oxygen, and the mother had looked at him strangely and told him the Grandmother had died years ago. 

Red had a quiet engine, and the one never noticed Keith documenting his visits to Stephanie on Fridays and Ethan on Sundays. Eventually after a few days of messaging and heartbreak the three had confronted the one about his cheating, and he had coldly said he didn’t actually think he was in a real relationship with any of them. 

‘Family Business’ was a bad thing, and Lance had just sent it to him. 

“I’ve called Shiro!” Pidge pounded on Keith’s door. “He will break down this door, so you might as well come out!”   
Keith turned up Mr Brightside to drown them out and shovelled another spoon of vanilla ice cream into his mouth. At first he had just sat there numbly, rereading that stupid misspelt sentence until Pidge realised he had stopped pointing out flaws in their argument. They had read it and shrugged with a naive smile.   
“See? He’s busy, nothing to do with you.” 

Keith was already beginning to feel twinges of guilt for his rudeness to Pidge, he had shoved his phone into his pocket and stomped to the kitchen and started rooting through the fridge until he found a carton of vanilla ice cream. 

“Uh… Keith?” Pidge had called out. “You’re lactose intolerant. Just a reminder.”   
“Just a reminder to shut the fuck up Pidge!” Keith snapped and grabbed a spoon. 

Keith knew that Pidge didn’t deserve to suffer through his frustration, but he couldn’t help the anger that was coiling inside of him and lashing out. He had been so stupid to dive straight into a relationship, it had barely been a month after all and he was already having a breakdown because of him. The conspiracy board seemed to mock him, Lance’s goofy, pixelated phone contact taped to the board. Growling Keith stumbled to his feet and tore the photo down, taking delight as it crumpled slightly and fluttered to the floor. From there Keith grabbed handfuls of multi-coloured post-it notes and threw them to the ground crunching them in his fists or tearing a couple of sickeningly sweet ones. Keith was disgusted by the sheer amount of tiny facts he had collected like some stupid lovesick teenager. 

One post-it note stuck to his jacket sleeve, no matter how erratic his arm movements became. Keith grabbed it and felt himself deflate at the little fact. 

Lance believes in, and is scared of ghosts. 

It was written by Pidge, and had been gathered by one of their conversations with Hunk. Keith’s anger went stone cold, guilt and shame washing over him in waves. Keith should’ve never snapped at Pidge, they had always been supporting and helping him. And despite Keith’s bad experience with ‘Family Business’ it was entirely possible that Lance genuinely had family business. Keith was just being an asshole because he couldn’t handle his own insecurities. 

“Keith?” Shiro knocked softly on the door.   
Keith dropped the post-it note and looked down at horror in the mess he had made, and unbidden a sob rose in his throat. Desperately Keith tried to stifle it, but he must’ve made some sort of whimper because Shiro quickly unscrewed the door handle and disabled the locking mechanism with the professionalism that came from too many years of dealing with Keith’s shit. 

Keith didn’t know it was possible to feel any guiltier and when Shiro’s concerned face came into view Keith lost all composure. 

Shiro didn’t seem too surprised to find Keith crying uncontrollably, and quickly dragged him away from the mess of paper and wrapped an arm around Keith’s shaking shoulders. 

Like a good brother Shiro waited until Keith had stopped crying before he said anything, and even before that he offered Keith a tissue that was accepted gratefully. 

“What’s up Keith?” Shiro’s tone was light but the hand squeezing his shoulder warned that he would not accept any excuses.   
Wordlessly Keith offered Shiro his phone, unlocking it and opening it to recent messages.   
“Oh Keith.” Shiro sighed, handing the phone back.   
“I… I know I’m being stupid but… but…” Keith choked out.   
“You’re not being stupid Keith.” Shiro removed his hand from Keith’s shoulder to pat his head. “This is something that upsets you.”   
“But I hurt Pidge!” Keith burst out. “I yelled at them when they were being nice the entire time trying to make me feel better and I just…”   
“Pidge is alright. They’re with Matt for the day, you’re going to need to apologise to them but they're not going to hate you.”   
“I hope so.” Keith mumbled into his arms. “And they’re probably right. He’s probably just busy and I’m an idiot.”   
“They are probably right.” Shiro conceded. “But you’re not an idiot, you’ve learnt to associate family business with bad things so you reacted to what you thought was a bad thing.”  
“Why are you so goddamn smart?” Keith huffed.   
“I’m not.” Shiro rolled his eyes. “I’m just the calm one in this situation.”   
“You’re literally a doctor.”   
“Whatever. Now what do you say to watching old Pokémon episodes and not eating stuff you’re intolerant to?” Shiro offered.   
“Did you bring strawberry liquorice?” Keith whispered.   
“Of course!” Shiro said sounding slightly offended. “The only way to stop you having a tantrum when you were little was to wave a packet in front of your face, it was my backup plan for now,”   
“You ass.” Keith punched Shiro’s arm.   
“Yeah, yeah.” Shiro ruffled Keith’s hair. “But I’m the one with strawberry liquorice so don’t tempt me to steal it all for myself.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I can't believe that this is almost 20k words, my current guess is that this fic might be around 30k to 40k words long. But idk, I'll see what actually happens when I write (yes I do have an outline, but its FLEXIBLE and sometimes things just add or delete themselves). 
> 
> Also Keith is lactose intolerant 100% and is going to have a bad time.


	17. Can sharks even vomit?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Keith grovels, Pidge sasses and Lance has some NEWS.

It 4:18 and Pidge was due to arrive home at 4:30, and Keith would be seeing them for the first time in two days. Keith had taken off his gloves to cook, but now he kept them off to gnaw at the first knuckle of his index and middle finger. It was a habit that he had developed because nails felt gross against his teeth, but in anxious times it resulted in bright red and slightly torn knuckles. 

Keith had baked to the best of his ability, which admittedly wasn’t much, peanut butter cookies. Keith had made sure not to even use Pidge’s stash in the pantry, but had bought the highest quality peanut butter he could find and spent his one afternoon off baking. The current slightly charred batch was actually his second attempt, the first had set off the smoke alarm, boiled the peanut butter and three actually exploded. Keith’s failure at baking was a mystery to him as well, he was an okay cook and it was just a process of following instructions. But for as long as he could remember baked goods always seemed to mutate and fail under his attempts of creation. 

Once the cookies had semi-cooled, Keith had gotten a knife and carved ‘I’M SORRRY’ into the front, remembering to put in blank cookies for spaces and specifically make an apostrophe one. He could only hope Pidge was ready to forgive him and he wasn’t going to be ignored. 

Keith was shaken out of his musings by the rattle of the doorknob and the subsequent groan of the door swinging open. Pidge froze when they glanced left and saw Keith, their lips pursed together before twitching into a closed fake smile and they moved to return to their room. 

“Pidge!” Keith yelped and felt his throat close up when they glanced back at him.   
“I’m really sorry. I was an asshole to you. You’re probably right and you were just trying to help me out, and I took my anger out on you.”   
“I was pretty nasty and you ended up having to leave because I was jerk, and I’m really, really sorry and I promise I’ll won’t take my anger out on you again.” Keith swallowed and finally played his ace.   
“And I made you peanut butter cookies as an apology.” 

“You didn't have to.” Pidge smiled. “I forgave you on your first apology. I just wanted to hear you grovel.”   
“Jerk.” Keith’s voice was more affectionate than angry, and Pidge’s grin confirmed they were aware.   
“Besides,” Pidge swung themselves up onto one of the kitchen barstools to stare at the cookies. “What does this say… ‘I’W 5OPPX?”   
“The M’s upside down.” Keith huffed and flipped it. “And it’s clearly ‘I’M SORRY’.”   
Pidge raised an eyebrow.   
“I tried. And its edible. Probably.” Keith sighed.   
“That’s good enough for me.” Pidge grinned and swiped the apostrophe cookie.   
“Wanna eat these and watch Sharknado?” Keith offered.   
“Now you’re speaking my language.” Pidge smirked, and a giant weight lifted off Keith’s chest. 

“Why don’t they just get a really long stick and shove it down their throats when they come to bite them?” Keith pointed at the screen angrily. “At least three deaths could’ve been prevented like that!”   
“Because then they’d have to deal with shark vomit.” Pidge squinted at Keith, struggling to make out their features without their glasses. Apparently the movie looked better when the special effects were blurry.   
“Can sharks even vomit?” Keith wondered and reached for his phone to check, only to find it quietly buzzing.   
“Can they?” Pidge echoed.   
“It’s Lance.”   
“What?”   
“Lance is calling me Pidge.” Keith gulped. “What do I do?”   
“Answer him!” Pidge fumbled to pause the movie.  
The dial tone was reaching the last of its rings, Keith squeezed his eyes shut and answered.   
“Hello?” Lance’s voice was thick with an emotion Keith couldn’t quite identify.   
“Hi, what's up?” Keith focused on keeping his voice steady.   
In response Lance burst into tears.   
“Lance? Lance?!” Keith yelled.   
“I-I’m fine.” Lance sniffled. “I’m sorry… I’m just so emotional.”   
“What’s going on?” Keith whispered.   
“I…” Lance struggled to speak. “I have a niece and nephew!”  
“What?” Keith’s eyebrows shot up. “I’m sorry, what?”   
“My eldest sister gave birth yesterday, she had twins and we were so worried we were going to lose them. They came a month early and she had to have a C-section.” Lance explained, still crying a little.   
“So you’re uncle! Congratulations!” Keith grinned, and Pidge gasped and clutched their face in excitement.   
“Yeah! Sorry I’m just so happy! It was the first time I’ve seen my family in at least nineteen years!” Lance laughed. “Well face-to-face, I’ve been able to call and face time them since I was ten. I’m just so happy!”   
“Oh.” Keith felt his stomach turning, Lance was rambling and probably was too caught up in his emotions to realise what he was saying.   
“It must have been great seeing them then!”   
“Yeah! It was a painful four hour drive inland, but it was worth it to see their little faces!” Lance gushed. “They’re so tiny and their eyes are incredibly blue!”  
“What are their names?” Keith asked.   
“Cordelia and Delmar.” Lance answered, and Keith could hear the pride bursting through his voice.   
“It must be nice to have two new little Sanchez’s, huh?” Keith mused.   
Keith was only met with silence.   
“Lance?”   
“Actually, they’re McClain.” Lance chuckled awkwardly. “I’m the only one who carries the Sanchez name, the rest of my siblings are McClains.”   
“Oh, sorry I didn’t mean to-“ Keith rushed to apologise.   
“Don’t worry, it’s nothing.” Lance interrupted. “But you know what matters? I’m going to be the best uncle they’ve ever had and I’m going to bring them toys every time I see them.”   
“You’re going to spoil them!” Keith chided.   
“Yes, but with love!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Can sharks even vomit? Answer: Yes. 
> 
> Merry Christmas/Holidays everyone!! (Depending where you are this will probably be late)   
> Sorry that this chapter is pretty late and short, but my Dad finally got home on the 24th after a series of flight delays due to the LA bomb threat and so I spent the day with him catching up and helping him grab some last minute Christmas gifts because he hasn't got his luggage back yet and a whole bunch of presents were in that :( 
> 
> Then its tradition that my family spends Christmas eve and Christmas day together so I've been pretty busy, and I was at my cousins house for about six and a half hours. 
> 
> Also my dog has Christmas anxiety. I wish I was kidding. We had to hide our presents and he kept trying to go hide in the bushes because he was worried we would be hosting this year and he's scared of champagne bottles. I love him but my dog is a literal shitpost.


	18. “Mothman.” Keith interjected

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Another day, another date. Sunglasses are needed, the mall is traumatised and Allura makes her debut.

“You brought sunglasses right?” Lance looked genuinely worried, a furrow pulling the skin around his eyes and one hand crumpling the hem of his shirt.  
“Of course!” Keith snorted. “You reminded me at least eight times.”  
“Good, because we’ve got to look intimidatingly beautiful.” 

Privately Keith thought that Lance looked intimidatingly beautiful with or without sunglasses, particularly so in his ripped jeans and with his neck adorned in at least ten glittering necklaces. 

“Just don’t make me pull all the weight.” Keith said instead as Lance slid behind him and fastened his helmet.  
Lance’s protest was lost to the wind, but his tone was indignant as Keith pulled Red through the tight gaps in traffic. 

“Someday I’ll be able to do something to make you shut up.” Lance growled, tugging his helmet off in the shopping centre parking lot.  
“You can already make me shut up.” Keith teased.  
“Shut up! And put your sunglasses on!” Lance squeaked trying to hide his blush with his own sunglasses.  
“Are we really going to be the douchebags that wear sunglasses inside?” Keith side, fishing the pair out of his pocket.  
“No, we’re going to be the intimidatingly beautiful men with sunglasses.” Lance corrected and paused. “Shit you can’t see me wink.”  
“Thank god.” Keith said dryly and linked an arm through Lance’s. 

“It’s not a smoothie.” Lance scowled. “It’s a crush or a juice if there isn’t any milk or yoghurt.”  
“It’s not just a juice if it has milk supplements in it.” Keith argued. “And it’s under the smoothie section!”  
“And it’s got a special box around it! To let people know that they’re not real smoothies!”  
“It’s to let people know that they are unique. If anything, they’re ultra smoothies!”  
“So which smoothies would you like to order?” The Boost Juice employee asked with a strained smile.  
“The realest smoothie you have!” Lance declared. “The Tropical Storm… regular size.”  
“Soy strawberry squeeze, regular size.” Keith added.  
The employee looked relieved and quickly punched their order in.  
“That’ll be $13.40. And what name will it be under?”  
“The sexi-“  
“Mothman.” Keith interjected.  
Lance pulled a face, an eyebrow creeping up his forehead and one birthmark creased in disbelief. 

“You were going to say something ridiculous anyway, like ‘The sexiest man in the world’ so we might’ve as well said something real.” Keith moved to the side so the queue could move on, leaving Lance stranded in shock.  
Lance was only shaken awake by the employee’s snickering.  
“Keith!” Lance screeched. “You’re the one with a mullet!”  
“That has been your response since we met, you should really get something better.”  
“You should get something better!”  
“Uh-huh.” 

“I love them.” Keith whispered, one hand gently pressed to the glass. “They’re so small.”  
“I guess they are pretty cute.” Lance conceded, giving the grey kittens a dismissive once over before returning to watch Keith.  
“You guess? My heart physically hurts right now.” Keith pulled off his sunglasses to get a closer look at the smallest one yawning.  
“Why don't you hold one?” Lance suggested.  
“No… no… I couldn’t…” Keith protested as Lance approached a staff member. 

Before Keith knew a tiny grey body was in his hands. Keith just stared awestruck as it stretched and batted an overhanging lock of Keith’s hair.  
The sound of a camera caused Keith to spin around accusingly, cuddling the kitten closer underneath his chin.  
Lance stood guiltily, phone in one hand and the other shoved in his pocket in attempt to be casual.  
“Sorry, you just looked really cute.” Lance admitted. “I couldn’t help it.”  
The little kitten mewled and rubbed its forehead against Keith’s chin, he couldn’t help but coo in response.  
But he chose to ignore the click and flash of Lance’s camera. 

“She’s really sleepy now, I should put her back.” Keith sighed and gently stroked the forehead of the kitten cradled in his arms one last time.  
“I’ll go get someone with keys.” Lance grinned and strode towards the staff member across from Keith.  
As Lance passed them, the little docile kitten shot wide awake and hissed angrily. Alarmed by the sound from the kitten the staff member rushed over, but relaxed once she saw the situation.  
“Aw don’t worry, she’s probably just upset you woke her from her nap.” She laughed. “Just give her a pat and she’ll calm down.”  
Gingerly Lance stretched his hand out, only for the kitten to batt it away with soft but determined claws. Lance took a few hurried steps back.  
“Oh dear.” The staff member tutted. “She must be very grumpy.”  
But in spite of this, the kitten let out one final purr in Keith’s arms before returning to her enclosure to frolic with the others. 

“Give me fish any day.” Lance grumbled. “Usually the most they do is stare at you judgementally.”  
“But surely you’re used to that by now.” Keith replied and wound his way around the rabbits to the wall of fish tanks.  
“Of course, when you inherit looks as gorgeous as mine, people can’t help but stare.” Lance shot back, but his expression warmed at the fish. 

The fish seemed warmed by Lance’s presence as well, and they all pressed to the front of their tanks writhing against each other to come closer.  
Lance just laughed and paced the room as the fish eagerly tracked his movements, his laugh clear and his blue eyes swirling around his pupils. 

“That boy must be some sorta fish whisperer.” A man with socks pulled up to his knees murmured to his similarly dressed wife.  
“Maybe he’s speaking to them, in some fish language?” The wife mused.  
“It’s just because my zipper is so reflective!” Lance laughed, one hand tucked into his pocket.  
“You hungry yet?” Lance asks. “Because I’m starving, let’s get out of here!”  
“Okay…” Keith narrows his eyes in suspicion but follows Lance anyway. 

“I can’t believe that you, whom was raised in a Japanese household, just suggested we eat takeaway Japanese food.” Lance gasped.  
“It’s better than McDonalds, and Shiro is actually terrible at Japanese cooking so I’m used to lower quality.” Keith grinned.  
“Really? But the dinner he made was really good.”  
“That’s his secret. He used to read all those suburban mum cooking blogs about budgeting and making food last, so he’s super good at cooking Western food, but hasn’t bothered to learn those skills in Japanese cooking.” Keith shrugged, tugging Lance along to a store that didn’t look like it would give them food poisoning. 

“The more I learn about him, the more I am convinced that your brother is just an occasionally threatening soccer mum, with a medical degree.”  
“Sounds about right.” Keith shrugged.  
“My cousin Allura is the opposite.” Lance said wistfully. “She’s always threatening and is only occasionally nice.”  
“Is this the organic and no wifi one?”  
“Yes. She used to wake me up at five in the morning to ‘train’ me, and chase me around with a gross piece of seaweed on a stick.” Lance groaned. “And if I tried to fight back she’d kick my ass and hit me with the seaweed until I started running again.” 

“She sounds terrifying.” Keith snorted. “Impressive, but terrifying.”  
“She isn’t all bad.” Lance smiled.  
“One time some dudes started harassing me, and ended up saying stuff like they were going to blind me and drop me off outside the boundaries of town, and Allura swooped in before anyone could react.”  
“Wait, blind you?” Keith stopped. “Are you okay?”  
“Yeah, it was years ago. It was just a weird oddly specific threat. But Allura picked up one guy and threw him across the courtyard and barely stopped short of tearing open the other guys face with her nails.” 

“That’s an oddly fond memory.” Keith commented, noticing the twitch in Lance’s lips and the dimpling of his birthmarks.  
“Everything about Allura is an oddly fond memory.” Lance snorted. “She used to get me in so much trouble…”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For the record, my favourite boost drink juice is an all berry bang.  
> I'm not sure about other countries but in Australia, Japanese food (particularly sushi) can almost be a fast food. You can buy rolls for a few dollars and near my school there is at least five pretty good places to buy them from. 
> 
> Updates from now on are likely going to reduce to about every three days, but (un?)fortunately there is probably only going to only be three more (long) chapters and an epilogue. 
> 
> Having said that tomorrow is my birthday so I'm going to upload the first chapter of another story I've been working on, which will involve the Galra, confusion in understanding human culture and the struggles of trying to return something without a receipt.


	19. Fight me you discount emo!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lance has a bad time, Pidge has a bad time and there's a blanket party.
> 
> Warning: mentions of misgendering and uncomfortable situations.

“Keith.” Lance took a deep breath. “I can’t keep doing this anymore. We have to stop. I’m sorry.”  
Keith refused to look at him.  
“I just can’t…” Lance’s voice hitched and he waved towards the TV.  
“You’re a sore loser.” Keith rolled his eyes. “What did you think would happen when you chose Peach on a motorcycle?”  
“Not coming 12th four times in row!” Lance cried. “You must be cheating!”  
“They’re NPC’s Lance, I’m not affecting them in anyway.”  
“Well at least I win in looks.” Lance flicked his hair and tried to get Peach to stop driving backwards.  
“Well at least I win in the actual competition.” Keith smirked as Boo crossed the finish line with all the NPC’s trailing behind.  
“That’s it!” Lance declared and Keith was distracted from his victory lap by a sudden weight sitting in his physical lap.  
“Keith.” Lance purred, drawing out the word and running his fingers through Keith’s hair.  
“You’re so cute.” Lance laughed, running a thumb over the blush that had sprung up in Keith’s cheeks.  
Keith couldn’t help but melt towards Lance’s warmth and the pure heat that was radiating from his sultry, tide pool eyes. 

Shiro coughed loudly, a smile fixed on his face and death in his eyes. 

“Hi Shiro!” Lance yelped and scrambled off of Keith. “How’s it going sir?”  
“I’m fine Lance.” Shiro said, placing a tray of toasted cheese sandwiches on the coffee table. “How is losing at Mario Kart going?”  
“Wonderful! Oh boy, are these some sandwiches? I’ll eat one so I don’t have to respond!” Lance babbled and grabbed the closest sandwich.  
“Wait Lance-“ Keith began seeing the little warning slashes on the bread.  
“Just let him.” Shiro said solemnly, placing a reassuring hand on Keith’s shoulder. 

Lance looked no more panicked than usual within the first few seconds, but as the contents of the sandwich hit his tongue, a flush crept up his neck and his eyes watered.  
“You grabbed Keith’s sandwich.” Shiro said nonchalantly. “He likes three teaspoons of cayenne pepper with his.”  
In Lance’s credit, he didn’t even try to resist. He just sat there, cheese dripping from the sandwich onto the floor and tears running down his face. 

Meanwhile Keith was frantically pouring milk into a glass in the kitchen, but predictably as someone who hadn’t actually touched milk in three years, he couldn’t stop it spilling over the counter. 

“Shiro! You’re a doctor! Why didn’t you stop this!?” Keith shouted, finally filling a glass and running back to Lance.  
“Honestly I just wanted to see what happened.” Shiro shrugged, looking far too pleased at the chaos. 

It took a few more glasses of milk and more of Keith’s screaming before Lance regained a little more mobility.  
“Shiro,” Lance finally gasped. “You’re possibly the most intimidating person I’ve ever met, but could you possibly tone the overprotective brother act a little fucking down?”  
“Eh, maybe.” Shiro shrugged. “You’ve almost proved yourself anyway.”  
“Thanks?” Lance raised an eyebrow.  
“Don't get too excited.” Shiro growled. 

“Why are you here anyway?” Keith frowned. “How did you get in?”  
“So you know one of my co-workers is part of Junniberry?” Shiro interrupted. “I got five tickets to go to a concert tomorrow night.”  
“What’s Junniberry?” Keith mumbled as Lance shrieked.  
“Keith, Keith, oh my god.” Lance grabbed Keith’s shoulders and shook him lightly. “Junniberry is one of the best bands ever! And their concerts are always booked!”  
“Well I’m going with Matt and another co-worker called Elise, so I’ve got two spare tickets.”  
“Are you implying what I think you’re implying?” Lance whispered.  
“I think so?” Shiro paused. “You two can have the spare tickets.”  
Lance whooped and hugged Keith, before jumping around the living room for a victory dance.  
“Are you bribing me to forget your casual breaking and entering?” Keith hissed.  
“Is it working?” Shiro grinned.  
“Maybe.” Keith blushed as he glanced at Lance, who despite being incredibly goofy was also an incredibly good dancer. 

“Hm?” Lance paused his dancing. “Keith your phone is ringing.”  
“Toss it.” Keith commanded and easily caught it out of the air despite Shiro’s sound of alarm.  
“Hey Pidge, what’s up?” Keith smiled answering the phone.  
“K-Keith.” Pidge hiccupped. “Could you come pick me up?”  
Keith was out the door before they even finished their sentence. 

Pidge didn’t look up when Keith approached, simply continued staring at the mulch underneath the swing set. Keith sat in the adjacent swing and made a few squiggles in the dirt with his foot as the silence stretched on. 

“Mum invited the family over for lunch today.” They finally said. “Almost everyone was there, all my cousins, my aunts, my uncles, my grandparents…” 

Keith nodded when Pidge’s little tear streaked face glanced up at him. 

“It was good to see some of my cousins again, Bethany got into the championships for trampolining, and Cameron finally quit that shitty retail job he was working.” The barest hint of a smile graced Pidge’s face, and they stretched their toes to trail through the dirt. 

“But Bethany’s mother started it.” Pidge’s hands gripped the chain of the seat. “She kept pointing out how nice Bethany looked in this expensive dress… and once she got most people’s attention talking about the brand, she started asking me why I didn’t want to wear a pretty dress.” 

“A-and I thought that would be it, and I don't mind dresses really, I just dislike how f-feminine they make me look.” Pidge’s voice wavered. “And once I said that, she started demanding ‘why I was ashamed to be a girl?’ and all that shit. And some others joined in.” 

“I’m going to kill them.” Keith snarled, reaching across to grab Pidge’s hand. “I fucking will just give me their names.”  
“You might have to get in line. Matt and Dad were pretty ready to go when I left.” Pidge laughed, squeezing Keith’s hand back.  
“I was going to stay.” Pidge shrugged, but tears were beading in their eyes again. “Matt and Dad had my back, but then one of my aunt’s bought out a small dress they thought would fit me and started holding it up to me and… Mum came in.” 

At this Pidge broke down in tears and Keith awkwardly swung sideways to wrap his arms around their small shaking form.  
“She just looked at me! And I was literally backing away and someone said ‘don't you think she would look nice in that?’ And Mum just smiled and said ‘Yes I think she would!’” Pidge wailed.  
“It’s okay.” Keith soothed. “Matt and Sam respect you, and so many other people do too, and you don’t live with her anymore. You don’t ever have to talk to her again.” 

“I’m just so angry!” Pidge cried. “I’m so fucking angry! I don’t want to care but I do! Every time she does shit like this I try to cut her out, but then she apologises and promises that she loves me and I fall for it all over again!”  
“She doesn’t love me.” Pidge slumped weakly against the seat and Keith. “She just loves the idea of me, and that’s nothing like me.” 

“Pidge.” Keith whispered. “She’s missing out on so much, because the real you is incredible and so loved. And that idea of you that she loves was miserable.”  
“I just wished she cared.” Pidge whimpered.  
“Me too.” Keith sighed. “Just so you wouldn’t be sad. But apart from that I wish she was dead.”  
Pidge let out a startled laugh, and they began to wipe away their tears.  
“Thanks Keith.” They muttered. “Sorry to drag you into my shitfest.”  
“Eh, you’re a regular attendee at my shitfest, so its only fair I attend yours.” Keith grinned. “But I have to say at least I’ve never been so cliché to be on swings.”  
“No, but you pined with ice-cream and Mr Brightside.” Pidge snorted and punched Keith lightly on the arm.  
“Hey! Mr Brightside is a quality song!” Keith said defensively.  
“Yeah, right!” Pidge giggled as Keith shoved their swing.  
“Are you challenging me?” Pidge smirked and began swinging their legs to gain height.  
“Are you?” Keith shot back and pushed off the ground. “The one who gets the furthest wins!”  
“Fight me you discount emo!” Pidge hissed and kicked angrily into the air. 

Within a couple of minutes Keith reached maximum height and leapt from the seat, managing to clear the swing set mulch entirely and landing about three metres from the still wildly swinging chair. 

With a confident smirk Pidge swung twice more and let go. 

And Pidge fucking _flew_. 

Idly in the back of his mind Keith wondered if he should run forward and catch them, but they soared past Keith and cleared his mark by a metre and a half, landing on their feet. 

“There’s a reason I’m named Pidge.” They grinned, hands proudly on their hips and eyes clear of tears.  
“I just thought it was because you were a Pokémon nerd.” 

Keith supposed he deserved the pile of mulch thrown at his face. 

“Well, we’re here.” Keith parked Red into her designated spot, and pretended not to notice Pidge rubbing their eyes again.  
“Oh yeah… Shiro and Lance are still in our apartment. Do you mind if they’re there?” 

Pidge just silently shook their head. 

Having run out of reassuring things to say for the day, Keith just patted them on the head. 

Pidge was subdued for the rest of the journey, not even attempting to fiddle with the elevator controls like they usually did. 

The silence felt to delicate to break, and far beyond Keith’s comfort skill level, so he stayed quiet and tried to unlock the door as silently as possible. 

Lance and Shiro were standing by the sinking, actually laughing and smiling at each other until they noticed the two in the doorway.  
“Pidge!” Shiro shouted and barely paused to clean the suds off his hands and sweep Pidge up into a hug.  
“Shiro!” Pidge whined. “At least pretend to struggle when you pick me up!”  
“Nope.” Shiro dumped Pidge on the couch and wrapped a blanket around them.  
“I’m an adult Shiro.” Pidge grumbled.  
“Barely! Now let me do what I do best!” Shiro snorted and continued wrapping blankets around Pidge until they resembled a grumpy blanket ET. 

“Should I go?” Lance worried his lip with his teeth.  
Unluckily Pidge heard him.  
“Shiro, if you let Lance escape I’ll never forgive you. Turn him and Keith into a burrito too.”  
“You heard them.” Shiro grinned. “Now is this going to be the easy way, or the hard way?”  
“We could rush him.” Lance hissed out of the corner of his mouth. “You take the left and – HOLY SHIT!!”  
Quickly the two split as Shiro darted in between to slam the front door. Unfortunately the only weapon near Keith was a cushion, whilst Lance somehow managed to make a TV remote look threatening. 

“A pillow, really?” Shiro sighed. “You’re making this too easy.”  
“Fight me Shiro!” Keith growled.  
Shiro accepted the taunt and dived straight at Keith’s feet, Keith jumped away and managed to hit Shiro with the pillow a few times before Shiro’s shoulder slammed into Keith’s hips.  
Doubling over to protect himself, Keith realised his mistake too late as Shiro easily slung him over his shoulder in a fireman’s carry.  
“Lance!” Keith shouted, but the Lance had long since fled. 

No amount of wriggling deterred Shiro and Keith was placed next to Pidge.  
“Can’t break free?” Pidge teased.  
“Not unless you want me to break the cabling Shiro used to tie my arms together.”  
“If you fucking dare…” Pidge growled.  
“Now just to find the runner.” Shiro rubbed his hands together threateningly and proceeded to search the apartment. 

With a bit of struggling Keith managed to turn himself around to see Shiro throw the pantry door open. Immediately Lance jumped out, brandishing the TV remote threateningly. If anything, Lance was defeated faster than Keith, as Shiro simply picked him up by the armpits and held him at arms length.  
“What are you, fifty kilos?” Shiro shook Lance a little, as if rattling him would make him heavier.  
“I’m sixty five of pure muscle!” Lance shrieked.  
Despite Lance being ‘pure muscle’ he soon landed on the couch next to Keith, before looking expectantly at the door. 

Right on time, there was a knock. 

“I’ll answer.” Keith said sarcastically.  
Shiro just rolled his eyes at him and opened the door.  
Hunk stood in the doorway, he was slightly smaller than Shiro but his loose clothing couldn't hide the muscles that rippled underneath.  
The two stared at each other, unsure of who would win the fight if they engaged. 

It was Hunk who finally broke the tension. 

“So I heard you guys were having a blanket party!” 

“HUNK NO!” Lance cried. “Save us! It was an SOS call! Not a party call!”  
“You look fine.” Hunk said dismissively. “I brought chocolate éclairs.”  
“Come right in!” Shiro said warmly. “Welcome to my brother’s and Pidge’s apartment.”  
“It’s a nice place.” Hunk smiled. “Where should I put the éclairs?”  
Keith just screamed into the couch cushion. 

It was eight hours later that everyone had been officially freed, and the DVD looping episodes of that old cartoon Pidge liked started again, that Pidge leant over and whispered deliriously to Keith. 

“You’re gonna lose your shit when Lance shows you his… his fucking hands and jazz. Goddamn, gonna be fucking cool.” 

“Fucking sweet.” Keith mumbled, unaware of the secrets Pidge was spilling in their sleepy state.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Eh I'm not sure if I'm portraying Shiro properly, I head cannon him to be a bit standoffish with people he believes are a threat, but once he ensures they're a decent person he ends up caring for them very deeply. But idk if I'm showing this properly (SPACE DAD WHY ARE YOU SO HARD TO WRITE????) 
> 
> Also the cartoon they watch is Voltron Defender of the Universe (one of the original Voltrons).


	20. Yeeeeeeeehhhhhhh!!!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A new day dawns, a night begins and the Shiro effect is incredible.

Keith awoke the next morning to two things; gentle sunshine hitting his face and the smell of something burning. Drowsily Keith pulled himself up off the couch, removing Pidge’s knee from his face as he did so and cracking his neck. 

“I hate it when you do that!” Shiro scolded from the kitchen, desperately flinging open windows and shoving a pan in the sink. 

Keith just squinted at Shiro, like most mornings he was not yet coherent enough to respond, the words rattling around his head like loose coins in a jar. 

Pidge grumbled a little in their sleep, and their knee prodded Keith’s arm gently. Still not quite awake and with all impulse control gone, Keith flipped Pidge’s knee over so they rolled off the couch. 

Pidge hit the ground with a bang, somehow remaining asleep and nestling closer to the carpet. 

“What was that?” Shiro lifted his head from scrubbing the pan.   
“Nothing.” Keith slurred, and then as his mind whirred back into action. “Lance?”   
“He went home with Hunk, he wasn’t feeling too good.” Shiro explained.   
“What?” Keith jerked awake. “Why didn’t you wake me up?”   
“He was fine!” Shiro snorted. “He just needed a rest, and he’ll be fine to go to tonight’s concert.”   
“Are you sure?” Keith slid off the couch, narrowly avoiding stepping on Pidge’s face.   
“Yes Keith.” Shiro beamed. “Trust me, I’m a doctor!”   
“I’m still convinced you only went to med school to say that.” Keith groaned and slumped into one of the kitchen stools.   
“And also because you said I would make a terrible bartender.”   
“You would constantly lecture people about drinking responsibly.”   
“It’s important!” Shiro huffed.   
“So what did you burn for breakfast?” Keith asked, peering into the sink to see some black sludge that bubbled ominously.   
“Now that,” Shiro pointed a spatula at Keith seriously. “Is not important.” 

 

Now that Keith had arrived at the nightclub, he knew why Shiro had two free tickets. Apparently it had been offered to nearly every other co-worker they had, but once they realised they would be acting as wing-men for Matt they all backed out. 

Poor Elise didn’t even seem to recognise Matt’s terrible attempts at flirting, but Shiro’s expression as he tightly gripped his third shot of vodka screamed ‘I heard him practising these lines in the mirror all week.’ 

“So Elise…” Matt wiggled his eyebrows. “Aside from being sexy, what do you do for a living?”   
“Matt, we work together.” Elise frowned, her head cocked slightly in confusion. 

Shiro downed his third shot without even blinking. 

“Go.” He rasped. “There don't need to be anymore witnesses.” 

Chuckling Lance caught Keith’s hand in his, pulling him away from the disaster and towards the crowd of dancers.   
“Oh no.” Keith tried to back away. “I’m not a dancer.”   
“Jumping isn't dancing!” Lance protested and held tightly to Keith’s hand.   
“No way. Not happening.”   
“Please? Just a few songs?” Lance begged, and when had Keith ever been able to say no to those eyes?   
“Fine.” Keith sighed and let Lance pull him into the crowd. 

Dancing with Lance wasn’t just jumping, more often than not it was desperately trying to stay upright as Keith was spun around and pulled in different directions. Lance on the other had was completely fluid, lightly stepping around Keith to tease him with feather-light touches whilst keeping entirely in beat. 

Keith honestly couldn’t tell if the heat in his stomach was jealousy or arousal, but either way Keith desperately tried to match Lance’s movements. Sensing that Keith was playing along, Lance shimmied closer to Keith and placed one hand on his lower back and one between his shoulder blades. 

Before Keith could properly react, Lance was leaning into his space and forcing him backwards, lowering him into a dip. Keith’s heart only beat faster as Lance’s mouth lowered to his ear.   
“Do you have a name? Or can I call you mine?” Lance whispered.   
“Why the fuck would you call me Lance?” All of Keith’s excitement quickly faded with confusion.   
“No, no that’s not what I meant!” Lance exclaimed, pulling Keith upright again.   
“Uhh…. Do you know what this shirt is made out of? Boyfriend material!” Lance grabbed the front of his shirt and smiled hopefully at Keith.   
“I mean I’m not a fabric expert, but I’m pretty sure that’s cotton.”  
“It is.” Lance sighed, looking vaguely unhappy.   
“What?” Keith raised an eyebrow, feeling like he was clearly missing something.   
“Nothing! Let’s just dance!” 

Eventually Keith managed to pull Lance away from the dance floor, despite him insisting that each song was his favourite. At Keith’s insistence they found a lounge that didn’t look too filthy, and flopped down on top of it until Lance determined that they both needed drinks. 

“Do you think I can convince Shiro to buy us drinks?” Lance asked, one of his birthmarks crinkling in mischief.   
“No way, he must be on at least his sixth drink by now and he’ll have somehow gathered a crowd of happy drunks and they’ll all be complimenting each other.”   
“That sounds so nice.” Lance’s eyes twinkled. “You mind the couch, and I’ll see which of us is right!” 

Personally Keith hoped that Lance was right, because then they got free drinks. But he had witnessed the Shiro effect far too many times to be optimistic, and the group of girls leaving the bar giggling uncontrollably was a bad sign for free drinks. 

“What’s a pretty thing like you doing here all alone?” A figure purred, sliding onto the couch next to him.   
“I’m not.” Keith glared and shifted away from the stranger.   
“Well that’s a shame honey, how can I help you out of that?”   
“Help me out of what?” Keith growled.   
“Whoever you’re waiting for… or perhaps something else.” The stranger smirked and leant in.   
“That’s enough!” Keith barked and stood up, intending to get as far away from the creep as possible.   
“Don’t be so shy!” The stranger hooked his fingers onto Keith’s belt and dragged him backwards, forcing Keith to stumble into his lap. 

For a few seconds all Keith could feel was the stranger’s whiskey breath huffing on his neck and his hand sliding up Keith’s thigh as the other gripped firmly onto his belt. 

The next few sensations were far more enjoyable, Keith’s elbow hitting his throat, his right hand tightened into a fist smashing his nose and shoving the stranger hard enough that the couch toppled over with him. 

The stranger screeched in pain, the people around them jumping to their feet except for one girl who just called ‘Yeeeeeeeehhhhhhh!!!’ But to Keith’s amusement, no-one helped the pervert. 

“Damn, you could’ve just said no you freak!” The man spat, struggling to his feet.   
“I did!” Keith shot back, and his hand itched to smash the nearby beer bottle and shut him up properly.   
“Crazy bitch!” The man snarled, and before Keith could reach for the bottle he was pretty sure the cheering girl was sliding to him, a warm steady presence was at his side.   
“What the fuck did you say about my boyfriend?” Lance growled, eyes stormy and hand tightly gripping Keith’s.   
“That’s he’s a filthy whore!”   
“And you’re banned!!” A deceptively cheerful security guard said. “For the fifth time this year!”   
“What are you gonna do? Kick me out?” The man chortled. 

The security guard continued to grin as she lifted the man into the air and carried him to exit, his cursing and attempts to kick her going entirely unnoticed. 

“I’m really sorry.” The other security guard turned to them sheepishly. “Fights are banned for any reason, so I’m going to have to ask you to leave.”   
“That’s fine.” Keith breathed deeply. “Is it alright if I detour to tell my brother I’m leaving?”   
“Yeah, I just have to walk with you.” The guard said warmly. 

Shiro was understandably enraged when Keith told him why they were leaving, and the Shiro effect worked wonders with fifteen slightly drunk people all furiously checking Snapchat stories, Twitters and Facebooks to find the man. Keith bet that within in a few days he’d be banned from most nightclubs in the city, there’d be online discourse and Shiro may or may not put out a hit on him. 

As an apology for the incident and a lingering element of the Shiro effect, the bartender reached underneath the bar and pulled out a bottle of pre-flavoured Berry Vodka and offered it to Lance. Numbly he accepted it, alarmed by the sheer power of the Shiro effect. 

But it took three minutes of wandering down the road taking turns swigging from it, that Lance finally reacted.   
“Hey!” Lance shouted. “We did get free drinks from Shiro!”   
And with that, all the tension and anger that had been curling inside of Keith’s stomach dissipated with Lance’s laughter. 

“Wait a second.” Keith stopped in the middle of the path and turned to face Lance.   
“When we were yelling at that guy, you called me your boyfriend.” 

Lance’s face went bright red and he choked on the vodka he had just drunk. 

“Uh… yeah.” Lance finally spluttered. “We haven’t made anything official have we? But we’ve been on a few dates and I really like you, so I was wondering… if you’d maybe like to… um… be my boyfriend?”   
“Only if you’d be mine.” Keith breathed and seized the back of Lance’s neck to pull him into a kiss. 

One of Lance’s arms pulled Keith closer, but the other was unfortunately occupied by a bottle of vodka. This bottle quickly became a hindrance as Lance attempted to stroke Keith’s hair, but accidently hit Keith with it instead.   
“Really?” Keith hissed breaking the kiss, more from shock than pain.   
“Oops.” Lance giggled.   
“Oh yeah.” Keith glanced around, now realising that they were standing in the neon glow of a convenience store. “Where are we going?”   
“Oh, I was just planning Hunk’s place, since it’s the closest.” Lance shrugged.   
“No offence,” Keith joined his hands with Lance’s spare as they walked. “But do you have a place of your own?”   
“Forward aren’t we?” Lance teased, causing Keith to blush and protest frantically.   
“But yeah… I do.” Lance gulped. “Would you like to stay at mine?”   
“Sure thing.” Keith smiled. “I bet it’s nicer than mine.”   
“You’ve already lost one bet tonight, do you want to lose another one?” Lance grinned.   
“Technically we both won.” Keith sniffed.   
“Technically we got free drinks as I said!” Lance yelled and attempted to chug half the bottle.   
Keith then had to frantically stop his boyfriend from chugging a bottle of vodka in a residential suburb at 1:25 in the morning.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welp this really fought me in the beginning, but it wasn't too bad towards the end.   
> BUT THE NEXT CHAPTER IS GOING TO BE WILD!!! ITS GOING TO BE THE LAST ONE BEFORE THE EPILOGUE!!! GET READY EVERYONE!!!!!


	21. Twenty thumbs up emojis and a winky face

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Only good things can happen from here.

Keith didn’t ask for many things in life, and the few things he did ask for were easily obtainable like groceries or a paid utility bill. But Keith found himself drunkenly begging the universe for a time machine of all things, just so he could show his past-self and every person he had ever met, the boy with a laughter like wind chimes and a smile like sunshine that was now his boyfriend. 

Oddly Keith’s thoughts led to introducing Lance to his eighth grade science teacher, an enthusiastic physicist called Mr Candun with a tendency to gush about his wife and children in the middle of class. Whilst in his class Keith had struggled to understand two things, math and infatuation, but now he could probably go back now and confidently tell Mr Candun he understood. 

Another person would be Ellie, whom he had met mid-emo phase, recently orphaned and depressed. She had stared at him and Shiro when they moved into the apartment opposite hers, and had a welcome banana bread baked within the hour and an open invitation to Keith to join her on the roof whenever he got bored. Keith would go there more than he cared to admit to sit on the air conditioning units with her and indulge in the cynicism and nihilistic ideals he needed at the time. Keith wished he could go back and show her Lance and tell her attraction and affection was more than just chemicals and hormones, and something worthwhile and tangible. 

And Keith couldn’t help but wish he could’ve introduced Lance to his parents. They would’ve acted as a tag team, embarrassing him in the fond way parents tend to do. His mother would’ve cooked a massive dinner and told embarrassing stories about Keith’s childhood and how he liked his food until Keith chased her away, but most likely whilst Keith would be struggling with his mother his Dad would sneak out baby photos and the infamous tape of baby Keith’s efforts to subtly push his broccoli on to Shiro’s plate. 

It was probably all the daydreams filling Keith’s already hazy mind, but he entirely missed Lance leading him through Hunk’s garden, down a winding staircase and across a private beach to a small shack built into the cliff side. 

Something warm flickered in Keith’s stomach at the sight of the shack, it was cosy and private and it was just the two of them. 

Keith didn’t want to assume, but there were certain implications when a couple went back to a place alone. Keith wasn’t sure whether the thought of the implications or being a couple excited him more. 

But to his disappointment, Lance led them away from the shack and towards the ocean instead. 

“Keith can you turn on your flashlight?” Lance asked, strangely serious as he knelt in the sand.  
“Okay, what for?” Keith frowned but fumbled for his phone as Lance didn’t respond and began to dig a hole in the sand.  
By the time Keith had opened his phone and found the light setting, Lance had created a little pool full of seawater from the tide. He was washing his hands free of sand in the pool when light hit his features.  
“Sorry.” Keith quickly swung the light out of Lance’s eyes and down towards his hands. 

At that point, Keith’s mind stopped functioning. 

Lance’s arms had retained their usual skin tone, but had become more translucent so with the help of the flashlight he could see pale blue veins and the shadow of the bones that controlled the little webbed spikes at his elbows. Trailing his eyes down, Keith could see patches of blue centred around the spikes and the outside of his forearm before climbing up his pinkie finger. His hands were largely the same, but the fingernails had darkened towards a violet colour and sharped, with webbing that stretched between fingers just above the second knuckle. 

Idly Keith realised that the webbing matched the colour of the scales on his arms. 

“Uh, I get this is kind of weird. And I hope it isn't a deal breaker or anything, but I thought you might not react badly or I don’t know-“  
“Can I touch your hand?” Keith breathed, cutting across Lance’s babbling.  
“Sure, I mean you have been all night…”  
Keith tuned Lance out as he turned the limb over in his hands, marvelling at the smooth texture of the scales and Lance’s shiver as Keith’s fingertips ghosted over his wrist. His hand was different now, more delicate and slightly slimier, but it was still warm and clutched desperately at Keith’s as if he might run at any point. 

“I was right.” Keith whispered, eyeing the little fins on Lance’s elbow.  
“What?”  
“I was right!” Keith screeched, and he didn’t care that he had effectively ran into the ocean in his celebration. “I was fucking right!”  
It wasn’t until the water was lapping at Keith’s knees that he glanced back to the shore to see Lance looking incredibly vulnerable, arms tucked into his chest and the scales rapidly fading. 

“Wait no! Lance!” Keith struggled to get back to the shore. “You’re perfect! This is cool I’m happy!”  
“Really?” Lance whispered.  
“Yes. Absolutely!” Keith was out of breath and soaked in sea water, but he pulled Lance into his arms and pressed kisses to his cheeks, nose and what he could reach of his forehead until he giggled.  
“I really, really like you Lance, and this is really cool, and I’m so glad you trusted me with this.” Keith said breathlessly grabbing Lance’s hands with his own.  
“Thank you.” Lance blushed. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you earlier, but I didn't know how you'd react.”  
“That’s fair, and seriously you could’ve told me in three years time and I’d still think that it would’ve been an appropriate amount of time to wait. This is… this is major.”  
“And to think, this isn’t even my final form.” Lance said dryly.  
“Wait really?” Keith blinked. “There’s more?”  
“Of course, I can show you if you’d like. Do you still want to go to my place by the way?” Lance grinned.  
“Is this… is this not your home?” Keith gestured to the shack.  
“Nope! That’s just a storage shed, my home is further out.”  
“Well, I’d still like to see your house.” Keith smiled.  
“Okay then, shoot me down if any of this is too dodgy.” Lance said nervously. “But I need to go store my clothing and phone, so it doesn’t get wet. So I can go change and then ya’know change-change, and whilst I do that you could change into some swimmers and then we can go.”  
“Sounds good.” Keith reassured him. 

Distantly he knew it was a perfect scheme for a cryptid to lure him out and murder him, but this was his boyfriend Lance, and Keith couldn't bring himself to be worried. Especially when Lance fled the shed with a towel wrapped tightly around his waist and dived into the ocean. 

Keith eventually found a pair of boarders that fit him, and folded his clothing neatly next to Lance’s haphazard pile. Before Keith left the shack he sent Pidge a quick message that he was staying the night at Lance’s. He’s not sure what he expected, but twenty thumbs up emojis and a winky face eighteen seconds later was definitely a surprise. 

“Lance?” Keith called, wading into the waters.  
“Over here!” Lance called, a little deeper out but the moonlight illuminating just enough of him to see. 

And once Keith was close enough, he couldn’t stop staring. 

The scales on his arms were littered across his chest and up his neck, curving inwards towards his throat before following his jawline and disappearing behind the pale blue webbed fins that framed his face and protected his pointed ears. His little birthmarks had grown larger and were now indigo scales around his eyes. Lance’s eyes were perhaps the most mesmerising new feature, the sclera was completely blue, and there was only the barest hint of a darker pupil swimming in the sea of azure. 

Keith was so transfixed by Lance’s torso he missed the tail until one of the larger fins attached to Lance’s hips brushed Keith’s leg.  
“Oh.” Keith said dumbly. “Forgive me for being blunt, but are you a mermaid?”  
“What gave me away?” Lance smirked revealing fanged teeth. “And yes, that's a common name that humans give my species.”  
“You’re beautiful.” Keith blurted out before he could stop himself.  
Lance spluttered in embarrassment, but his tail coiled around Keith’s legs in affection. 

“So, how are we getting to your place?” Keith asked, raising an eyebrow at the expanse of empty water around them.  
“We swim.” Lance shrugged.  
“Above water?” Keith frowned.  
“No.” Lance blushed as the problem dawned on him. “Don’t worry I’ll make sure you can breathe.”  
“How? Not a challenge, just a question.” Keith added seeing Lance’s expression and the flick of his ear fins.  
“Well… my gills act as a filtering system but my lungs are fully functioning and I can push air into your mouth.”  
“So you’re going to make out with me until we reach the bottom of the ocean?” Keith teased.  
“Not quite that far, but essentially yes.”  
“Nice.” Keith swam forward and wrapped his legs around Lance’s hips and looped his arms around his neck.  
“If you need air at any point, just tap me. If you can’t get air for any reason just hit me and I’ll bring us straight up to the surface.” Lance promised, one hand resting between Keith’s shoulder blades and the other gripping his knee.  
“Take me to your ocean house, fish man.” 

The whole process was a lot less romantic and lot more exhausting than expected, with Keith acting like a bulky backpack that slowed their journey and the ‘air kisses’ being more like uncomfortable CPR. Keith had tried to help by kicking a few times, but he just dragged Lance back and caught them in currents.  
Eventually Lance expressed in muffled English and chitters, that Keith was to stay were he was, admire the fish and let Lance do the work. 

Finally Lance swam past a small coral reef full of darting fish that bothered Lance until he trilled at them angrily, and towards a large section of rock underwater.  
It was then a game of charades for Lance to explain that they needed to swim through the tunnel to reach Lance’s home. 

Keith went first, holding his breath and using the rocks lining the tunnel to pull himself upward and then swimming the last few metres to the surface of what appeared to be a lake. 

The cavern was beautiful, blue minerals flowed around the edges of the lake and lined the walls so Keith could see the collection Lance had amassed. The beach looked a bit like a junkyard, with rotting, salvaged furniture surrounded by boxes filled with anything from chipped mugs to ripped clothing. One section of the beach was entirely dedicated to a stash of instruments, all in differing conditions. There was a silver flute that gleamed in crystal light, and a rusted tuba filled with seaweed and dead flowers. As Keith turned to face Lance, he caught sight of one side of the cave covered in mirrors, from ornate antiques with warped glass, to cheap plastic hand held mirrors to painfully collected shards that were carefully nestled in-between the larger mirrors and rocks. 

The cave definitely belonged to Lance. It was three parts messy, one part ridiculous and five parts the result of someone trying to make something out of very little. 

“Next time, you can wear flippers and bring an oxygen tank.” Lance panted, floating on the surface of the lake.  
“Hey I could’ve been fully kitted out in scuba diving gear if you had given me a little more warning.” Keith joined Lance in floating, staring at the cracks in the ceiling where moonlight shone through.  
In response Lance just spat a mouthful of seawater at Keith.  
This led to a small splash fight, in which Keith was severely outmatched and was eventually thrown onto the shore, only to be drenched by a massive flick of Lance’s tail.  
“Rude.” Keith pouted. “You could’ve at least pretended I had a chance.”  
“And let it get to your head? No way.” Lance smirked and pulled himself up onto the sand to lie next to Keith.  
“You’re not… you’re not going to beach yourself are you?” Keith asked sceptically.  
“No!” Lance scowled. “Sand is wonderful on scales! This is like an exfoliating scrub!”  
“That’s a good thing, right?”  
“When you say shit like that I can’t believe you ended up with such a pretty face.” Lance sniffed.  
“Aw, you think my face is pretty.” Keith giggled.  
“I kissed you about thirty times on the way here.” Lance rolled his eyes. “I would’ve thought that was obvious.”  
Keith leant over and kissed Lance’s cheek, just below his eye scale. For a few minutes the couple just basked in each other’s presence, until Lance’s ears drooped and one of his pointed teeth emerged to nibble on his lip. 

“So… I suppose you want answers?”  
“If you’re comfortable with telling me more.” Keith said carefully. “I’m kind of going in blind right now.”  
“Well it’s a long story, and it started way before me…” 

_It was considered good luck to have many children, especially in the volatile times Altea found themselves in._

_Many children were the promise of a future, for both the population and the family bloodline. So it was no surprise that the rulers of Altea were often polygamous and had children in the double digits, just to spread the ability to manipulate quintessence to as many people as possible. Besides, only half the children would ever make it to adulthood._

_Children died very often, adults too, but children were far more vulnerable to the pollutants in water, hunger and the predators that swarmed ever closer to the cities in search of food and safe waters. It had seemed like a brilliant idea at the time, to use their advanced technology that kept them hidden, to explore deeper waters for resources._

_But the first expedition thought they had found something better._

_A sister colony living in the depths, with a highly sophisticated society that was previously unaware of its shallow water siblings. The first expedition couldn’t stay with them long, the pressure was too immense and the waters too cold, but they invited them to the city. Unfortunately they couldn’t visit the city, they could withstand the warmth but the bright lights burnt their eyes and skin and drove them away._

_So Queen Agate met them in neutral borders, a medium where both species could exist comfortably. But the Galra turned on them, took the Queen hostage and demanded that the city’s lights be turned off so the Galra could take what they wanted._

_Queen Agate refused to let her citizens die for her sake, so after she used the last of her powers to declare her brother the ruler until her eldest son Alfor could rule, she took her life. On that night, the lights burned brighter than they ever had and the Galra were forced to retreat._

_It was King Laelius that pioneered the quintessence era, using Altea’s crystals to make resources stretch and even the most lifeless rock become food. But the Galra had a few who were also capable of quintessence manipulation, and their inventions allowed soldiers to approach the city. There were many casualties on both sides, but the Galra had lost every quintessence manipulator to Altea’s skilled warriors, and Altea had lost many of its lights._

_It was an uneasy stalemate, with both sides realising that now there would be little to gain but much to lose. It was the Galran emperor Zarkon who called for an alliance, for one of the many royal children to be married to a lord of his empire. The treaty was a solution to the war, but a marriage with a royal would pass on the vital quintessence genes that the Galra empire needed to make a weapon. With famine slowly destroying the population, it was deemed a necessary risk.  
So the royal child with the weakest quintessence was chosen, a Princess called Camila. _

“Oh thank god.” Keith wheezed. “I thought you were going to say you were forced into an arranged marriage.”  
“Nope, this all happened before my birth.” Lance shrugged. “But it gets worse…” 

_Princess Camila was weak in manipulating other’s quintessence, but a master with her own. She tried to explain to King Laelius that her quintessence genes could be just as devastating, as a child from her could shift their body to keep the Galran strength but adjust their senses to withstand the Altean lights. But King Laelius still declared it a risk he was ready to take._

_So, like most teenagers in arranged marriages that would likely result in destructions of one’s home, Princesss Camila ran away. With her mastery of quintessence she made herself legs, and befriended a family that lived on the shore. They were not surprised by her identity; most of them had slight quintessence manipulation abilities, having been descendants of a royal that also fled. She was welcomed into their home and spent three years living with them, learning human culture and swimming in their private cove._

_She thought that Altea believed her to be dead, but a passing patrol caught sight of her one night and reported her to the court. It was only Prince Alfor who persuaded the nobles to leave his sister alone, as she was young and was likely to return once she understood her responsibility._

_But fate had other plans, and barely a month later when the moon was at its fullest and Camila was at her most powerful, she became entangled in a fisherman’s nets. She fought against them for hours, but they were made for struggle and she only became more and more trapped. In her exhaustion, she fell asleep and only awoke to her being lifted in the air onto the deck of a ship._

_The fisherman was cautious and knew that nothing good could come of trapping her, so he freed her and tried to help her back into the ocean. But Camila knew she could not leave him alive, and it was only with his fishing knife that he managed to drive her off. But his throat and chest had been clawed and her torso had been slashed._

_So it was inevitable that two hours later when he had changed out of his fishing gear and she was in her human form, that the two met in ER._

_Eventually they buried their hatchet and became good friends, and by the time that five years had passed since Camila left the ocean, they were in a loving relationship and were engaged._

_When King Laelius found out he was enraged, he knew the information would reach the Galra quickly, many citizens had become their spies for food and supplies, and the Galra were growing stronger and bolder. As one of his last acts as King before he passed the crown Alfor, Laelius ordered warriors to sink and kill the fisherman, and cursed Camlia that if she ever approached Altea again, the lights would blind her and she would become like the Galra she had fled._

“Camlia and Antonio survived the attacks. They moved inland to a farming property and had two girls.” Lance smiled. “But their third child was the problem.”  
Keith leant over and squeezed Lance’s hand.  
“I was conceived and born on a full moon, and if I had been a full Altean I would’ve been immensely powerful. But as a halfling I had the same level of power as a royal Altean, but I was completely untrained.” Lance shifted in the sand a little so Keith couldn’t see his face. 

“My… my parents did the right thing. Mama spent most of her time in a human form and only swam in the pool when it was dark and no one else was around, and my sisters could only create the barest scales and gills at their age and only when they concentrated.”  
“I was constantly in my ‘mermaid’ form, and I couldn’t go to the school, talk to anyone or go outside. So Mama took me back to Altea.”  
“Oh no.” Keith whispered.  
“Mama was blinded by the lights, and the citizens were hostile. So King Alfor took me in and ensured that my mother got home safely. But I couldn't leave.” Lance’s last word ended in a sob and Keith threw his arms around him and cuddled him close to his chest.  
“People were so angry, I was the representation of why some people’s families were dead and why people were starving! It was only King Alfor’s promise to Mama that kept me safe, and even then when tensions were high I had to hide and…”  
Lance trailed off sobbing, Keith continued trying to soothe him by running his fingers through his hair, but Lance just needed to let it out. 

“I’m sorry, this is a whole bunch of heavy stuff.” Lance sniffled. “But I had to tell you. It was because of this that I tried so hard to leave and Hunk’s family has been helping me.”  
“Is Hunk’s family the one that helped your mother?” Keith asked.  
“Yep.” Lance rubbed his eyes. “And he’s gone above and beyond in helping me, he built me the storage shack, taught me about human culture and has been helping me build up my ability to be without water.”  
Inwardly Keith gave himself another check on the conspiracy board, but outwardly he just wiped his boyfriend’s tears away and stroked his hair.  
“He was the one who took me up to see my family. He rented a ute, filled the back with water, put a tarp over it and drove my fishy ass four hours inland and carted me to the pool and back whenever I got too overwhelmed.”  
“Hunk is a good friend.”  
“Yeah.” Lance laughed, it was a wet but happy sound. “He’s amazing.” 

“Again, I’m really sorry to dump all my emotional baggage on you.” Lance shimmied a little away from Keith. “But it makes a lot more sense and…”  
“Lance, don’t worry.” Keith took a deep breath. “Besides, you’re not the only one with emotional baggage.”  
“My story isn’t as interesting but… I was… I was taken in by the foster care system when I was six months old because a neighbour suspected neglect. The doctors thought that my birth mother dropped me one day and didn’t pick me up because I was crying too much.”  
“I had greenstick fractures all over my right side, and my mother disappeared before we could ever get the full story.” As if in memory of the event he was too young to remember, Keith’s right side throbbed and he tried to avoid looking at Lance.  
“It was fine for a while after that, I was adopted by the Shirogane’s and everything was good. But when I was fourteen we went on a family road trip, and a truck driver had a heart attack and swerved into our car.” 

The next words were far harder to get out. 

“I was… I was sulking because I didn’t want to go to stupid tourist attractions so every one was trying to cheer me up by playing stupid music and dancing in their seats. The truck hit us just as MMMBop was playing, and Shiro was doing that wave-dolphin thing with his arm out the window.” 

Lance sucked in a breath, the air hissing across his teeth and tongue in a noise that was half-shock and half-pity. 

“Yeah. That was the accident that cost Shiro his arm. He was pinned for hours and it had to be amputated. Mum died on impact and Dad died a couple weeks later in the hospital. I was lucky, I just got slammed against the door so my right arm was broken, I had concussion and the seatbelt cut my chest and neck, but it was nothing serious.” 

Instantly Lance’s eyes flickered to the long scar that stretched across Keith’s torso.  
“May I touch it?” Lance’s voice was low and serious, and his fingers hovered patiently.  
Keith nodded.  
Lance trailed his fingers over the scar, and Keith couldn’t help but shiver at his cold touch. Following his fingers, Lance lightly kissed the line from the start at his neck to the bottom of his rib cage.  
“It was tough.” Keith finally found his voice when Lance laid his head on his chest and traced the mark idly.  
“Shiro was four years into a medical degree and barely had any income. We ended up selling the house and moving into an apartment. I was angry and kept getting into fights, and Shiro was struggling to open jars let alone assist in surgeries.”  
“But…” And Keith choked back tears. “We made it.” 

For a while Keith and Lance just laid there, nestled into each other and the sand, with the water lapping at their ankles and fins.  
“This is not where I expected things to go tonight.” Keith admitted, breaking the silence.  
“I know, species reveals and tragic backstories.” Lance snorted. “Where did you expect this to go?”  
“Honestly?” Keith blushed. “Sex.”  
“Well.” Lance purred. “Is that still an option on the table?”  
“I-if you want it to be?” Keith stuttered.  
And suddenly all the scales and fins disappeared, leaving Keith with a very human and very naked Lance. 

 

“Shit!” Keith paused in pulling his shirt, causing Lance to spin around with a wince.  
“What is it?”  
“Look!” Keith shoved his phone at Lance, they had only managed to return to the shack in the early morning, but already Keith had thirty missed calls from Shiro.  
“Ooh, he left voicemails! Lets listen!” Lance snatched the phone and opened up the first of six voicemails. 

**‘Heyyyy Keith, Matty and Elise have finally gotten together so I’m gonna… gonna go! You should go to bed. It’s late.’**

“He sounds drunk.” Lance giggled. “Do you mind if we play the rest?”  
“No go ahead, I’m curious now.” 

**‘Keith! I told you to go to bed…. You’re… you’re not in bed. I checked. Pidgey… Pidgenator… Pidgeja, is in bed. Where are you?’**

**‘Keithy, baby-bro… you’re not allowed to be dead. Or drunk. But mostly not dead. I’ve checked the bar again and you’re not here… don’t be dead.’**

**‘I’m gonna, gonna wake Pidge up. They're gonna track you down and we’re gonna save you, like, like action hero style. We’re gonna break a window and punch a guy. We’ll be there.’**

**‘Pidge is… Pidge stole my arm. They didn’t want to wake up and they yelled at me. Also, I can't open the door. I’m so, so sorry Keith. Be strong.’**

“This one was just half and hour ago.” Lance grinned. “He’s probably sober now.” 

**‘Uh, hi Keith. I was really drunk and Pidge told me you were with Lance and too busy to pick up the phone so… really sorry, but be safe. Use condoms.’**

“Oh god.” Keith groaned. “He’s going to try to give me The Talk when I get home.”  
“You’re an adult.” Lance tossed the phone back.  
“Yeah tell Shiro that, just because I don’t have a medical degree doesn’t mean I don’t know the basics of sex!”  
“I don't know Keith… I think last night you proved to me you definitely knew more than the basics.”  
“Lance!” Keith shouted, blushing furiously.  
“Aw, it was awesome babe, don’t be embarrassed.” Lance teased, booping Keith on the nose. “You know… this is a private beach, and a private shack…”  
“This is really, really tempting,” Keith murmured as Lance mouthed at his neck. “But I know Shiro is going to call half-way through and I’ll probably die if I have to answer.”  
“But later.” Keith added seeing Lance’s disappointed look. “Seriously, lots, later.”  
“I’m sold.” Lance sighed. “Reckon I can convince Hunk to drive us back so later can come sooner?”  
“I hope so.” Keith smirked, and held back a laugh as Lance sprinted across the beach. 

It was not until Keith was halfway upstairs to his apartment with Lance eagerly by his side that he came to a realisation.  
“Lance we’re covered in sand! What are we going to tell them?”  
“The truth.” Lance shrugged.  
“No! I’m not telling my brother and roommate we had sex on a beach!”  
Number sixteen’s door opened and the businessman gave them a funny look.  
“Good morning.” Keith muttered, and received no response.  
“Well you just told your neighbour!” Lance’s shoulders were shaking with laughter.  
“That was an accident!”  
“Besides, I meant the truth as in, ya’know… all my stuff.”  
“They won’t believe me. Not without you there in the very least.” Keith dismissed.  
Lance stared.  
“Keith… Pidge and Shiro know.”  
“What?”  
“I mean… I told Pidge, and they told me that you practically already knew, and I told Shiro afterwards and I think he assumed that you knew? I thought you already knew I was Mer, and last night was just proof.”  
“That asshole!” Keith growled, and stormed up the stairs. “I thought you were Leanan Sidhe!” 

An hour and a half later after Keith had to be persuaded not to kill his roommate and brother, Lance and Keith laid in bed wrapped around each other. They were fully clothed, because they both agreed sex was too awkward with people in the next room, so they were just dozing whilst Lance babbled sleepily about Altea.  
“Allura is a bit crazy, but she is cool…” Lance yawned. “And Coran is the best, and he told me stories about Mama when she was little…. And the lights really are beautiful.”  
“Lance.” Keith turned and kissed him softly. “If you want I will go get scuba diving gear and you can show me.”  
“I’d… I’d love that.” Lance’s voice wobbled and his smile was shaky, but there was an unmistakable look of happiness on his face that Keith couldn’t help but pull him closer and kiss him again.  
Eventually they pulled apart and Keith stared into the blue eyes that had entranced him from the very beginning, and knew that even if Lance hadn’t been a cryptid, he still would’ve been the most beautiful thing Keith had ever seen.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, this chapter was a lot longer than expected and parts of it had more info-dumping than I would've liked. If you see any typos/grammatical errors PLEASE do not hesitate to tell me, even if you just write twenty comments pointing out the problems its awesome because I struggle to pick them up. BUT ITS FINISHED!!!! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!! 
> 
> Man, I hope you guys enjoyed this journey as much as I have. This is my first fanfiction, and the first story I've actually finished, and I think it'll always be a little special to me. 
> 
> Having said that, the epilogue IS coming!! 
> 
> I'm going to Japan for two weeks and then going straight back to school, so I'm not sure when... but there will be plenty of fluffy scenes wrapping up the story!! 
> 
> If there is anything you particularly want to see or want resolved, comment and I'll see if I can add it in!! 
> 
> Seriously love you guys <3


	22. And so he did.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Epilogue.

“Lance, this is a whole new level of weird.”

“No its not!” Lance frowned before turning back to the screen. “We’re having a conversation.”

“They’re two months old and the one of the left-“

“Delmar.”

“-Is asleep!”

“Well he was tired! Cordelia is still a little bundle of energy though!” Lance cooed to the baby in question who stared aimlessly into the camera and lifted a single floppy arm into the air.  
“Look how strong she is already! She’s gonna be so buff when she grows up, she’ll probably be able to lift all her friends and loved ones.”

“You know who else can lift people?” Keith smirked.

“Keith no!” Lance shrieked but he had already scooped a hand underneath Lance’s knees and shoulders and pulled him away from the baby live stream.

“Cordelia! Avenge me!” Lance screeched, struggling in Keith’s arms as he carried him away.

Baby Cordelia raised one pudgy arm in farewell.

“Betrayed!” Lance sobbed into Keith’s shoulder. “By my own niece!”

“She’s two months old I don’t think she could fight me.”

“Keith for the last time, don’t fight babies.” Shiro called before re-engaging in Hunk’s attempts to teach him how to make friendship bracelets.

“For the last time?” Lance’s face contorted with horror. “You’ve tried to fight babies before?”

“They always stare at me weirdly.” Keith shrugged.

“Babe no!”

 

* * *

 

“Babe, what are you doing?” Lance poked his head around the corner, peering into Keith’s room.

“No don’t come in!” Keith shouted, but his boyfriend had already bellyflopped onto his bed.

Keith should’ve known better to do this whilst his boyfriend was in his apartment, but on the days Lance spent at Keith’s and Pidge’s he tended to spend at least an hour or two in the bathtub, generally being his mer self and driving their water bill up the wall. But he had only spent half-an-hour rehydrating, and was now staring at Keith’s wall.

“Uuh…” Keith’s mouth went dry at trying to explain the conspiracy board to Lance, but the boy had already slid off the bed to examine it.

“Mesmerising eyes? Hypnotic voice? Babe did you construct some sort of post modern art poem for me?” Lance’s eyes twinkled with amusement, clearly knowing it wasn’t.

“Pidge helped!” Keith found himself answering, as if it helped with the situation in any shape or form.

“Aw Pidge! Thanks for helping to write a love poem for me!” Lance shouted.

“The fuck what?” Pidge slurred from the living room, clearly having just woken from a nap.

“And how romantic! The red string represents the red string of fate!” Lance ran his fingers along the string connecting ‘Doesn’t mind hickies’ to ‘Likes fart jokes.’

There was a moment of silence.

“Wait how the fuck do these two connect? What conspiracy is this?” Lance raised an eyebrow.

“The conspiracy is me trying to figure you out.” Keith admitted, and the blush on Lance’s face showed him a way out of this situation.

“What makes you smile…” Keith purred, walking away from the corner he had backed into and towards Lance.

“What makes you laugh…” Lance unsubtly eyeing the swing of Keith’s hips only made him more confident.

“What could possibly make you like me…” Keith breathed and ran his index finger down Lance’s jawline.

“I’m not that easy you know.” Lance gulped. “I still want to-“

Lance cut himself off with a groan as Keith bit just above his collarbone.  
From then all protests were out the window, lips crashing together and hands fumbling with buttons and zips.

Slowly but surely, Lance backed Keith towards the bed pushing him gently onto the covers and crawling after him to press their bodies together. Grinning Keith rolled his hips, and used the distraction to slip his hands into Lance’s boxers and feel the firm flesh underneath.

“Hey babe…” Lance groaned, still grinding against Keith. “Do you know how I like fart jokes?”

“No.” Keith gasped and dug his nails into Lance’s shoulders pleadingly. “Please don’t I will-“

Lance just smirked and let one out.

Perhaps in another situation Keith would be disgusted but impressed by the sheer volume and length of the fart, but unfortunately for Lance it was not this situation.

“Dear god!” Keith shrieked and shoved Lance away to pull open his windows. “What the fuck did you eat?”

“Seafood mostly.” Lance shrugged, immune to the stench floating around him.

“Well you can see yourself out!” Keith snapped and shoved Lance out of his bedroom into the hallway.

“Babe no!” Lance laughed and tried to open the door Keith had promptly slammed.

“You killed the mood, you killed your chances for today.”

“Babe please, I’ll help you update your conspiracy board on me, I’ll help you study my anatomy.” Lance tried to sound seductive, but the effect was ruined by his giggling.

“I am getting nowhere near that ass today.” Keith said flatly. “Now go air out!”

“If I cook you something nice in the kitchen will you let me back in?”  
Keith stayed silent.

“That wasn’t a no!” Lance cheered and Keith could hear his feet padding down the hallway.

“Hey Pidge!”

“LaNCE WHAT THE FUCK!!” Pidge shrieked. “COVER THE FUCK UP YOU NASTY BASTARD!!!”

 

* * *

Keith’s first impression of Allura was ‘When the fuck did Pidge create a hologram?’ Because no one was that naturally pretty.

But that thought quickly faded as Lance tried to peer out from behind her and soothe the either tangible hologram or actual person by patting her shoulder whilst simultaneously trying to pull her out the doorway.

Her eyes darted from side to side as she took in the apartment’s inhabitants, Keith surrounded by textbooks and trying not to choke to death on the juice box he had been sipping, Pidge balancing on the armrest of the chair with both feet in the air trying to read, Hunk who had gone several shades paler and paused in trying to fix their microwave and Shiro standing in the kitchen wearing an apron emblazed with the words ‘Let’s all just take a death’ and failing not to stare at the gorgeous woman.

“You!” She hissed and charged at Shiro, and now Keith was definitely interested because Shiro was usually the one getting Christmas cards from his exes, not death threats and vague posts.

“Me?” Shiro squeaked as she backed him into the counter.

“Yes you! You’re the one who has been distracting Lance from going inland!” She hissed and poked him in the chest with a glossy pink nail.

Lance was frantically trying to whisper something to her but she didn’t respond and only continued her rant at Shiro.

“I can understand in the beginning that Lance might not have told you of his situation, but now you all know and you’re still distracting him from practising moving away from the ocean!”

“What?” Shiro gasped.

“Do you have any idea how dangerous it is for Lance? In the Altean court he always has to have a guard because some people think he’s a traitor for existing, and if he doesn’t get enough practice living on land he could slip up and get caught by humans! But no! You’ve been distracting him and I know Lance has not being getting enough practice!”

“I have been Allura! I’ve just been having breaks often as well because I’ve been tired!” Lance tried to interject.

Allura whirled on Lance.

“Lance now more than ever you need to be able to live on land, in the last five visits you’ve had to dodge attacks!” There was something fiercely tender about Allura, someone who was full of anger at the world but with no way of stopping it.

“So why don’t we come to a deal, Keith.” Allura narrowed her eyes at Shiro. “Lance seems attached to you so I don’t want to break that, but you need to make sure that he isn’t endangering himself by missing the chance to train.”  
“Allura!” Lance tried to interject.

“Is that clear?” Allura seethed.

“Yes ma’am!” Shiro gulped.

At Shiro’s confirmation all the tension seemed to drain out of her body, her shoulders lowered and her face relaxed enough for her eyes to be dragged down by the bags beneath them.

“Good.” She smiled. “Sorry for being so aggressive but I need to be when it comes to my baby’s cousins safety, Keith.”

For a moment Shiro seemed to be calculating, glancing to Keith who was slowly sliding under the table to hide from white-haired storm. When Shiro smiled Keith knew he was fucked, because Shiro was smitten with the girl and all his reasoning was out the window.

“Actually I’m not Keith. I’m Shiro, Keith’s older brother.” He shrugged. “That’s Keith.”

A look of horror entered Allura’s eyes and an embarrassed blush spread across her face, but far too quickly she composed herself and raised an eyebrow at Keith’s disappearing figure and mouthed ‘really?’ to Lance.

“That’s what I was trying to tell you!” Lance scowled.

Keith couldn't tell if Allura was going to ignore him, repeat the same talk or make a new one, and for a few minutes she didn’t seem to know either.

“So,” Allura grabbed a chair opposite to Keith and glared down at him. “What are your intentions towards my cousin?”

By the time Allura had left Lance had entered the bathtub and was refusing to come out, and Keith was confused as to how he’d agreed to get a manicure with her next week.

 

* * *

“Lance can I come in?”

“Well no one is listening to me today, so sure come right in!”

Keith’s hand hesitated over the doorknob, before falling to his side and he leant on the door.

“Lance, if you don’t want me to come in I won’t. But I do want to talk.”

“Come in.” Lance’s voice was soft but full of frustration.  
“Thank you.” Keith shut the door behind him, and settled on the edge of the bathtub.

Lance hugged his tail to his chest, pouting and ear fins flared.

“What has made you so upset?” Keith murmured and reached out a hand to stroke Lance’s hair.  
Hissing Lance jerked away and sat curled up in the tub, chest heaving and gills fluttering.

“I’m just…” Lance gritted his teeth. “I know I have to get better, and sometimes I have the time to do things but I need to rest as well.”

“Allura is right. If I was working as hard as I should be I should’ve mastered this by now, and Allura wouldn’t need to be constantly stressed trying to find out who is sending assassins after me or who are Galra spies or anything.”

“Lance, you need to have breaks sometimes. What you’ve achieved thus far is incredible and you can’t disregard that, and you don’t need to destroy yourself in the process.” Keith sighed pulled the bathmat closer to the overflowing tub with his foot.  
“Besides, Allura is a princess, she is going to be stressed from issues of the kingdom no matter what. You worrying about her worrying isn’t going to help.”

“Nice speech.” Lance’s tone was simultaneously bitter and soft.

“You don’t have to feel better. Just let yourself figure out your thoughts and feelings.”

“How are you so calm?” Lance muttered into his arms, but his words were empty and his ear fins were beginning to droop.

Truth was Keith was not calm, the bitter comment had wiggled underneath his skin and was bubbling in his stomach. But it was an age-old feeling, and Keith had long since learnt how to distance his actions from his emotions.

There was a difference between losing yourself in a moment and losing yourself in an emotion.

Neither were necessarily bad things, but the violent outbursts Keith had experienced as a child had taught him caution in allowing emotion to build. If he was going to fight he wanted it to be on his terms, not from being overwhelmed and suddenly finding himself with tunnel vision, no memory and people yelling at him for lashing out.

Besides, Keith thought as Lance raised his teary eyes to Keith’s and grabbed his hand, anger rarely yielded results but patience brought gifts.

 

* * *

“I’ve been meaning to ask,” Hunk paused in helping Pidge sort through parts.  
“Why does everyone call you Shiro?”

Shiro rolled over and muffled his laughter into the couch cushion, his body shaking uncontrollably and causing the couch to wobble.

“Oh god no.” Keith groaned, immediately covering his face with his hands.

“What? What? Tell me!” Hunk grinned.

“O-okay, okay…” Shiro wiped tears from his eyes. “That little one over there had the cutest lisp when he was little. Couldn’t pronounce t, d or z’s.”

“I could pronounce s’s.” Keith muttered defensively.

“So despite my many attempts to get my baby brother to call me Takashi or Taka, he just couldn’t do it. So this little genius decided to replace it with a similar sounding letter.”

“And it sounded terrible let’s all move on, alright?” Keith hissed.

“I was ten years old.” Shiro said dramatically. “I’d just come home and my little brother ran up to me excitedly to tell me about a bug he’d found. And I quote-“

“Stop.”

“’Fucker, wanna see?’”

Hunk burst into hysterical laughter, followed by the rest of the group and reluctantly Keith.

“For a MONTH my parents couldn’t stop Keith from calling me Fucker, so we switched to Shiro as a nickname and he eventually picked it up instead.” Shiro chuckled.

“You were a fucker.” Keith frowned. “When mum wasn’t looking you used to steal my cookies, you literally stole candy off a baby.”

“I put up with being called Fucker for a month, I think I deserved the cookies.”

“Shut up fucker.”

 

* * *

For once Keith and Lance were not at Keith’s apartment, as Pidge had kicked them out to work on a big project. Instead they were at Hunk’s, lying on the couch and watching TV, being utterly useless to stopping the chaos around them. Haku and Kalena were running from Hunk, giggling uncontrollably and knocking furniture over.

“Could you two stop being domestic for one second and help me!?” Hunk panted, scooping Haku under one arm but missing Kalena.

“But the ads are on.” Lance groaned. “The ads are my favourite show, aren’t they honey?”

Keith just nuzzled closer into Lance’s chest too sleepy to agree or disagree with anything.

“Ooh Colgate!” Lance said mockingly. “I love their dentists!”

“Lance help me!” Kalena shrieked. “Save me!”

“Nah.” Lance stuck his tongue out. “I’m watching the ads and Keith is feeling cuddly so I refuse to move.”

“No!” Kalena squealed as Hunk finally grabbed her, hoisting one twin under each arm and marching outside.  
Faintly there were two splashes and matching screams as the siblings were thrown into the pool.

“Wha?” Keith frowned at the noise.

“Just Haku and Kalena, don’t worry.” Lance hummed and patted Keith’s head until his eyes slid shut again.  
The moment was ruined by one of the ads blasting an air horn sound and Keith startling awake and elbowing Lance in the stomach.

“I’m sorry.” Keith yawned, staring down at Lance’s groaning mess on the ground.

“You gutted me! Literally!” Lance coughed. “My poor abs!”

“What abs?” Hunk huffed, locking the door shut and two angry wet children outside.

“Lance doesn’t have abs.” Keith sighed.

“I so do! Hunk don’t laugh! Babe!” Lance spluttered.

“Your shoulders are nice.” Keith mumbled and reached out a hand to pat Lance’s bicep appreciatively.

“Lance roll off that book.” Hunk gently pushed Lance with his foot, and being the dramatic creature he was Lance threw himself across the room until he hit the TV cabinet.

“Keith…” Lance groaned. “If I don't make it out of this alive… just know I would’ve taken-“  
“Huh, I was wondering where this album went.” Hunk grinned and started eagerly flipping through the book.

“What is it?” Keith sat up straight to peer into the pages.

“It has old sketches and photos of my relatives, going back centuries or so.” Hunk carefully removed the tissue paper from a charcoal drawing.

Curious, Keith peeked at the sketch Hunk stared so fondly at, a dark skinned girl with long curly hair and an even longer tail.

“She’s your relative?” Keith gasped. “You’re mer?”

“Well…” Hunk seemed embarrassed. “It’s been a few centuries, so no one really has any attributes anymore. Just little things.”

“Like what?” Keith demanded. “I mean, you don’t have to tell me but-“

“It’s okay Keith. My mama has some scales on her lower back, and my uncle barely feels oceanic pressure.”

“That’s so cool! So all these traits have lasted over the centuries?”

“Sort of.” Hunk shrugged. “It’s been almost an environmental factor, our relatives who have moved away don’t really have any traits, but anyone who grows up here tends to have small things. Also in the beginning a lot of relatives moved to Altea or mer moved out of Altea to marry someone.”

“Trust me, it was a lot. Even now a mer will occasionally come back absolutely smitten with a Garrett.” Lance giggled. “Hunk is actually an extremely popular bachelor.”

“Stop it!” Hunk blushed. “I’m too young to be married!”

“Do you want to know why Hunk is so popular?” Lance’s eyes twinkled. “He can trill!”

“He can what?” Keith cocked his head.

“Trill!”

Apparently Lance thought it was appropriate to demonstrate, and with a single wink from his ocean eyes he tipped his chin back and let out a high pitched warbling noise. There was something pleasant about the noise, and Keith slipped off the couch and nestled closer to Lance. Distantly he heard a deeper note from behind him, equally as pleasant but not as nearly alluring.

“He’s so sweet!” Lance cooed and Keith became aware that he had sat in Lance’s lap and rested his chin on his shoulder.  
“What was that?” Keith mumbled, pushing his face into the crook of Lance’s neck.

“I didn’t expect you to react so much.” Lance pressed a kiss to Keith’s head. “It was a call of sorts, I just kind of said ‘hey I like you come here’.”

“Well I like you too.” Keith pouted and wiggled his arms around Lance. “So come here.”

 

* * *

“I tried to stop him.” Hunk said miserably, wringing his hands at Keith’s expression.  
“He bought it when I wasn’t looking.”

Teasingly Lance hooked one finger underneath the band before letting it snap back onto him.

“Aren't I sexy baby?” Lance fluttered his eyelashes and twirled a strand of fake hair around his finger.

“Hunk, can I convince you to break up with Shay and date me instead?”

“Baby!” Lance shrieked. “I did this for you!”

“Hunk can you hear that? It sounds like someone who is dead to me.”

“Don’t bring me into this man.” Hunk gulped and backed out of the room.

“Darling, sweet heart, light of my life, please look at me!” Lance begged.

“Not until you burn that thing, person who is dead to me.”

“It’s an attachable mullet not a cursed item!”

“It might as well be.”

 

* * *

“What are you doing?” Lance mumbled and buried his face between Keith’s shoulder blades.

“Sorry, just making sure Pidge is alright.” Keith finished his text and curled back around Lance. “They’re working really hard right now for the competition so I wanted to make sure they ate something.”

“You’re a mother hen.” Lance’s voice was muffled, but it held a teasing tone to it.

“I’m a concerned roommate.” Keith huffed. “Besides when Pidge eventually takes over the world with their robots I’ll be remembered for providing sustenance and be spared.”  
“Can you put in a good word for me then?” Lance smirked. “I don’t know if I can outrun angry robots.”

“Of course, but it’ll be difficult. Pidge still hasn’t forgiven you for walking around naked.”

“Speak of the devil.” Lance said as the phone vibrated.

(Pidge): PIZZA+PIDGE.jpeg  
(Pidge): Are you happy now?

“Hold up.” Lance squinted at the screen and enlarged the image.

“What is it?”

“Turn your brightness up right now.” Lance demanded as Keith fumbled with the settings.

“They’re…” Lance gasped. “There’s pineapple on that pizza!”

“No way!” Keith grinned. “I knew it was all an act!”

(Keith): YOU  
(Keith): GGJNgjngnvjvvkkggj  
(Keith): (sorry Lance jostled me)

(Pidge): I don’t wanna know

(Keith): THERE IS PINEAPPLE ON THAT PIZZA  
(Keith): YOU CAN’T IGNORE ME I HAVE PHOTOGRAPHIC PROOF

(Pidge): U’re hallucinating. It’s a dream. It’s not real.

(Keith): Umm??? I don’t dream about you Pidge

(Pidge): Wow now I really don’t wanna know

(Keith): No I just have that reoccurring dream about hackers and you’re not one of them dw  
(Keith): BUT WE’RE GETTING OFF TOPIC  
(Keith): YOU’RE EATING PIZZA WITH PINEAPPLE ON IT

(Pidge): Omgggggg leave me alone go snuggle ur bf or some shit

(Keith): I will, but with the knowledge that you’re a filthy liar

(Pidge): Leave! Me! Alone!

(Keith): Kk bye.

“You’re gonna think of Pidge eating pineapple on pizza whilst we cuddle?” Lance pouted.

“I always think of cryptids when I’m with you.”

“Why do I always have to fight mothman for your attention?”

“Don't worry fishman, I haven’t made out with mothman yet.” Keith smirked and  
pressed his lips to Lance’s.

“Thank god for the both of us.” Lance said dryly and pulled Keith back in.

 

* * *

For the fifth time in eight minutes Keith checked his phone.  
In the name of romance Lance had insisted on a beach date on the private cove, with Lance catching fish and Keith cooking them. But an hour later Keith was still nursing the embers on the sand and Lance was nowhere to be seen.  
Checking the phone was just a nervous tick, because Lance had left his phone in the shack and wasn’t going to respond to any texts.

Keith tried to convince himself that maybe Lance was just a terrible fisher, but seeing how fast his reflexes were and how much he ate Keith just couldn’t see it. It was as Keith was testing the flammability of a strand of his hair that his phone started to ring.

“Hunk?”

“-no! Dammit I told you I would-“ Hunk yelled through the receiver.

“You should stop struggling.” Shay’s voice was muffled in the background, but still distinctly hers.

“Don’t!” Lance’s voice was a shriek, desperation colouring his tone and Keith  
almost dropped his phone.

“Lance! Lance? Hunk? Shay?” The fire was quickly forgotten as Keith tried to make out words from all the splashing and yelling.

“I swear to god Lance stay still or I will call your boyfriend!” Hunk snapped.

“Please don’t it’ll be so embarrassing!”

“What’s embarrassing?” Keith demanded.

“Oh shit I didn’t actually mean to call you.”

“Huuuunnnnkkkk.”

“What’s happening?”

“Lance saw Shay and I and wanted to prank us, but didn’t realise we were fishing and is now tangled in one of our lines.” Hunk sighed.

“Is Lance okay?” Keith whispered.

“He’s fine, just stuck.” Shay spoke into the phone. “But the lines may be ruined.”

“I’m more important than lines!” Lance yelped in the distance.

“Sorry Keith this might take a bit of time to figure out, do you mind if I hang up?”

“Go ahead. Just send him back to me when you’re done.”

Half an hour Lance emerged from the ocean with a big grey fish held in his arms.  
Keith raised an eye out the chunk taken out of the spine and Lance bristled defensively.

“I got hungry after that struggle with the lines.”

“Were you hurt?” Keith dumped the fish on the tinfoil before examining Lance.

“Just a scratch here.” Lance ran his thumb along a cut on the right side of his neck wincing a bit at the contact.  
Lance’s face twisted into a cheeky grin at the furrow in-between Keith’s eyebrows.  
“Will you kiss it better?”

 

* * *

“So why was it so important that you caught me a fish anyway?” Keith hummed as he buried Lance in the sand.

“It’s a mer thing…” Lance appraised a shell as he spoke. “I don’t know, maybe it’s like going to the movies and doing the arm thing but instead you catch someone a fish.”

“Romantic.”

“It really is!” Lance insisted. “The bigger the fish the more you care about someone!”

“So I’m worth 75cm of barramundi?” Keith teased and packed more sand onto Lance as he flailed defensively.

“Babe I love you but I’m not going to hunt whales, they’re already endangered!”  
For a moment Keith just laughed and let the sand run through his fingers, but eventually Keith processed Lance’s words and looked to the blushing boy in shock.  
“You love me?” Keith whispered.

“Uh…. Maybe? Yes.” Lance squeaked. “Like, we’ve only been dating each other for a couple months and I’m probably moving way too fast but yeah.”

“I love you too.” Keith muttered.

“It’s okay you don’t have to say anything back-“

“I said I love you too!” Keith shouted and unthinkingly threw a handful of sand at Lance’s face.

“Oh shit! Let me grab some water!”

“You’re kind of giving me mixed messages babe.” Lance coughed as Keith poured the bottled water over his face, washing the grains away from his eyes.

“Well I do love you, seriously.” Keith admitted.

“You’re incredible.” Lance lifted up a hand to stroke the side of Keith’s face.

“And you’re way too mushy, sand man.” Keith jerked away and covered his burning face by dumping an armful of sand on Lance’s torso.  
Wheezing slightly under the weight of the sand Lance plucked two shells from the pile he had accumulated and stuck them proudly over the sand covering his nipples.

“Sexy.” Keith said flatly, and as much as he denied it to himself, Lance’s laughter was one of his favourite sounds.

 

* * *

Hunk clapped politely as Lance arched out the water into another flip, fins flared and scales flashing in the sun.

“Lance, stop shining light in my eyes.” Shiro growled.

“I’m not doing anything!” Lance called out.

“Keith?” Shiro sighed.

“Nope, Keith is sleeping, Keith is not dealing with that shit.” Keith mumbled into the sand.

“Well Keith is about to lose his boyfriend.” Shiro snapped and pulled off his sunglasses as another glint of sun hit his face.

“Shiro, I hate to alarm you but this is my home ground, you don’t have a chance against me.” Lance bragged, swimming lazily in the shallows.  
“If it’s your home ground then maybe you have a chance to win.” Shiro said and stepped into the water.

“Uh Shiro I don’t mean to discourage you or anything, but will your arm be okay?” Hunk looked up from helping Pidge slather sunscreen on themself.

“It’s fine this is a water-proof version!” Shiro insisted.

“Allegedly.” Pidge muttered.

“A prototype is water proof until proven otherwise.”

“No that's-“

But Shiro had already pulled off his shirt and dived into the waves, swimming towards Lance with strong smooth strokes and eyes glowing with vengeance.  
“C’mon Shit-o, show me watcha ya got!”

For the first five minutes it seemed that Shiro’s ambition to catch Lance was really just a fever dream, but Lance was a royal and even the most determined assassins wouldn’t commit a horrifying faux pas in his presence.

But Shiro was a dirty fighter, with no idea of Mer battle decorum.

To rub salt into the wounds of Shiro’s repeated lunges and misses, Lance teasingly swam spirals around him, spitting water into his face after one particularly fruitless attempt. In retaliation Shiro grabbed at the lacy fin floating by him and yanked Lance backwards.

The resulting screech had Keith jumping up in alarm and Hunk diving into the waters, as Lance continued to wail until Shiro grabbed his tail instead and hoisted him around his neck like a disproportionate feather boa.

“You pulled on my ventral fin!” Lance sobbed. “Who even does that?!” =

“Me apparently.” Shiro grunted as he waded into shore. “What’s the big deal?”

“You could’ve torn it! It’d be like, like someone removing your fingernails!”

“What a disaster.” Shiro said flatly as he dumped Lance onto the sand.

“Keith?” Lance sniffled, flopping on the sand uncomfortably.

“Alright you oversized guppy.” Keith sighed. “Let’s get you un-beached.”

 

* * *

It was a quiet Tuesday afternoon, and Keith marvelled at how perfectly Lance fitted into his arms and how nice it felt to have him pressed limply against him, smiling as Keith carded his fingers through his hair.  
“Do you ever think of the universe?” Lance mumbled into Keith’s neck. “Like, parallel universes?”

“Sometimes, when horrible things happen.” Keith admitted. “I just think wow in a parallel universe I probably got hit by that car and died.”

“Lame.” Lance huffed. “You should think about cool things like us being superheros or ghost hunters.”

“You think about us?”

Blushing Lance just wormed his face deeper into Keith’s chest refusing eye contact.

“Aw.” Keith cooed. “Well I don't usually think about parallel universes, but I see something nice and I –“

The alarm clock skidded across the bedside table from the force of the doorknob slamming into it, letting out a shrieking buzz before tipping to the side and swinging by its cord. Lance had shot up in alarm, reaching up an arm to shield them from the oncoming threat.

The oncoming threat shoved against the door a few times before finally making its way inside and advancing on the screaming couple. It was a mess of wires and screws mounted onto some metalloid human form, screeching like the unfortunate fusion of a cockatoo and Satan’s own child.

Somehow throughout the chaos Keith realised it was also aggressively waving a pack of Durex at him.

It was then Keith decided if he was going to die he was going to die punching a robot.

“Scrappy no!” Pidge cried after poking their head around the doorway. “My child!”

“What the fuck!” Lance called hysterically, grabbing onto the wall to secure his safe place on top of the dresser.

“Keith no those are expensive circuits!” Hunk rushed to try and intervene Keith’s literal fistfight with a robot, but it was far too late.

 

* * *

“I must say, I did doubt you Keith, but you’re proving to be quite capable.” Allura smiled, admiring the lavender coat on her nails.

“Thank you? Was it me willing to have the manicure with you or something else?” Keith raised an eyebrow.  
“Actually, it was Lance telling everyone he saw how his boyfriend defended him from a robot.” Allura giggled.

“Scrappy…” Pidge moaned, twisting in the front see to stare at them with broken soulful eyes.

“My door still isn’t fixed.” Keith frowned.

“He was too young.” Pidge grieved, but turned around quickly to avoid further discussions of reparations.

“The prank really backfired.” Hunk sighed. “At least it was just spare parts and nothing we were using for the competition.”

“And it let me know that movement and screaming glitch was still going on…” Pidge mused.

“Why does the robot have a screaming function anyway?”

“In a competitive sense? It shows effective speakers and reaction to stimulus. The real reason? I like to wake Matt up in the middle of the night and chase him around with a robot.”

“We’re here!” Hunk announced as they pulled into the driveway of his house.

“You know, if my friends weren’t literally mermaids I wouldn’t be going to the beach this often.” Pidge grumbled. “I’ve spent way too much money on sunscreen.”

“What is sunscreen?” Allura cocked her head to the side and effortlessly bundled the remaining beach gear into her arms.

“It’s uh… it's a thing pale humans put on their skin and it stops them from burning.” Keith struggled to explain.

“Burning? From what?” Allura eyes darted around as if the burn was something that could attack her.

“The sun?”  
Allura only looked more horrified.

“Don't worry Allura, it has to do with UV light…” Hunk assured Allura, who was beginning to look less scared and more confused.

Unfortunately Keith couldn’t pay any more attention to Hunk’s lecture, and was distracted by the orange-haired man in a pineapple print speedo chasing his boyfriend.  
The guy looked strange enough to be a relentless cryptid hunter, and the possibility of that alone spurred Keith to drop the beach towels he was holding and sprint across the sand to Lance’s rescue.

“Keith!” Lance’s face broke into what must’ve been relief and he skidded to a stop next to him.

Realising that they were now fighting the pineapple-man offensively, Keith leapt in front of Lance and pointed a beach umbrella at the man.

“Step back.” Keith growled.

“I will do no such thing young-“ The man began indignantly, but was cut off by Keith’s squeezing a button on the handle and the umbrella opening to form a shield.

“Impressive. What are you planning?” The man’s moustache twitched.

“What are you planning?” Keith shot back.

“What are either of you two doing?” Lance said trying to convince Keith to close the umbrella.

“He was attacking you!” Keith spat.

“Attacking?!”

“I would never!”

“This is my old buddy Coran! We were just playing!” Lance insisted.

“You were running…” Keith trailed off lowering the makeshift weapon. “I really misinterpreted this all, didn’t I?”

“D’aw you were prepared to fight someone with a beach umbrella for me!” Lance cooed, ruffling Keith’s hair. “Who said romance is dead?”

“Me, if you keep messing up my hair.” Keith growled and swatted his hands away, unthinkingly letting go of the umbrella in the process.

Perhaps it was fate, or perhaps it was just sheer chance. But the wind picked up as Keith let go of the still-open umbrella, and the slight breeze carried it across a metre of sand to knock Coran over.

“Oh shit!” Immediately Lance was by Coran’s side, cradling his head on his lap and clutching his hand.  
“  
I am defeated…” Coran wheezed. “Avenge me Lance.”  
“I’ll fight the very winds!” Lance cried. “I shall not rest until they have seen my fury!”

“Thank you… you were always like a son to me…” Coran dramatically held his breath as Lance wailed, leaving Keith to wonder if this was normal or if his boyfriend and his friends were really that weird.

 

* * *

“Hey, hey Hunk!” Lance giggled. “Look!”

Dramatically tossing his head back Lance grabbed the conch shell sitting on the windowsill and positioned it in front of his chest.

“I’m ready for war.”

Apparently this was very funny to the both of them, but despite the rigorous meme training Lance had forced upon him, Keith couldn’t see the humour in the pink and white shell.

“Okay, I’ll admit it. I’m lost.” Pidge lifted their head from their laptop. “What’s with the shell thing?”

“Holy shit.” Lance breathed. “They don’t know!”

Hunk and Lance exchanged disconcertingly gleeful grins, and the blue in Lance’s eyes flickered with mischief.

“Alright, the Little Mermaid came out in the 90’s and during that time there was a lot of political upheaval due to the recent broken alliance with the Galra and most of the royal children hadn’t survived infanthood and the few that had were sickly and well, girls.” Hunk explained.

“Now most mer were fine with the next ruler being a girl, but cause society was so disjointed a few ugly mer spoke very loudly and started organising protests against girls being in charge.”

“I hope this is going in a good direction.” Pidge glared pointedly at the shell.

“Oh absolutely.” Lance grinned. “Not only were they against a future Queen they started protesting literally anything girls did and declared the modern female mer ‘as ridiculous as the human mermaid.’”

“This ‘human mermaid’ was Ariel, and in defiance a lot of mer started dying their hair red and wearing clam shells on their chests. Even now clam shells are seen as a symbol of rebellion against oppression.” Hunk added, gesturing with a maroon seashell.

“So, one day everything comes to head when baby Allura is being introduced into the court, and the dickheads broke in and started harassing the royals and the guards.” Lance cut in.

“And now it get’s good.” Hunk smirked.

“And now it definitely get’s good.” Lance echoed in agreement.

“Somehow the protestors found out and they all grouped together to come fight the assholes with red hair and clam shells.”

“Oh my god.” Keith felt the corner of his mouth twitch in amusement.

“Now the leaders of each group met in the middle and started arguing, and things got a little physical. Somehow in the process the leader of protests, Fallon, had her clam bra broken in such a way that she moved backwards and it snapped and hit the douche in the face!” Lance snorted.

“After that a fight broke out and the protesters overwhelmed the other group with strength and numbers and apparently a whole bunch of protesters decided to snap their bras as well to beat the hell out of the other guys.”

“I don’t think I’ll ever look at the Little Mermaid or clams the same way.” Keith grinned as Lance and Hunk chuckled.

“Yeah, so now its sort of a joke that if you put shells in front of your chest, something ridiculous is going to happen but you’re just going to roll with it.”

“Well,” Keith shrugged. “It’s better than ‘Dat boi’.”

Immediately Pidge was out their chair and launching themself at Keith.

“You take that back you heathen!”

 

* * *

When Keith awoke to the sound of a blender at 4AM he knew his day was going to start off horribly and only get worse. It was hard to convince himself to get up, but Keith still wanted solid food in his house so he kicked off his blankets and tried to convince himself it would be worth it as he struggled to find a jumper to use for warmth and possibly protection.

Even so it took Pidge knocking on his door five minutes later to rouse him from staring at the conspiracy board, that had more recently evolved into a date ideas board.

“Your turn.” Pidge mumbled into the pillow they had tucked under their chin.

“He’s using your blender.” Keith replied half-heartedly.  
“Your brother.” Pidge turned towards their door, but hesitated in leaving Keith alone in the upcoming battle.

“We do it together?” Keith begged and it must’ve been the 4AM eye bags, but Pidge relented and joined him.

The unmistakable sound of a can being opened only caused them to hurry.

The kitchen was in disarray, several glasses and thermoses filled with strange liquid spread out across the counter and a large blender battling to combine baked beans and toast. In the centre of the chaos was Shiro rummaging for cans of tuna and swigging a milk based drink like he fully understood the consequences of his actions.

“Hey Shiro.” Pidge yawned. “What are you up to?”

“Listen.” Shiro dropped the potato he had been considering to rush up to the pair.  
“I’m gonna be a miracle. I’m gonna be the juice master.”

“What brought this on?” Keith slipped away from the hand placed on his shoulder to switch the blender off.

“When you eat, it all get’s mashed up anyway. So…. So, why don’t you speed it up? Efficient as fuck. Down the hatch.” Shiro speech allowed Pidge to see the bloodshot veins stretching across his eyes, and the bags that sat deeply into his cheekbones below.

“How long was your shift?” Pidge asked trying to subtly lead Shiro to the couch, but he seemed oblivious to their tugging.

“38.” Shiro said decisively, before squinting at the lack of movement of the blender.  
“You’re right, it needs more chunk.” Shiro mused. “Porridge?”

“Shiro, you’re really tired right now, you probably won’t remember these recipes in the morning, you should rest and then continue later.” Keith said as rationally as you can when its 4AM in the morning and your brother has gone another juicing spree.

“No, no, no!” Shiro snapped. “I’m… I’m on a roll! Look, this perked me right up!” Shiro waved the milk based drink around, frowning when a little sloshed over the side.

“What is that anyway?” Pidge eyed the puddle on the floor and Keith groaned.

“This! This is milk, almonds and lucky charms! I’ll make you some!”

“Please don’t.” Pidge protested, but Shiro had already shouldered Keith to the side to tip the baked-bean mess into the sink and started throwing handfuls of lucky charms into the blender.

“What do we do?” Pidge hissed, eyes taking in all the mess.

“Accept the drink and make him sit down to watch your reaction, he’ll pass out then.”

“What!? I’m not drinking that nasty thing!” Pidge dropped their pillow away from their face to whack Keith lightly with it.

“Too bad, you asked what it was, now you suffer the consequences.”

“You used to deal with Shiro when you lived together, why can’t you drink his nasty creations?”

“I promised I’d never go back after the chocolate, beef jerky, orange juice smoothie.”

“Here!” Shiro chirped and thrust the glass at Pidge who tried their very hardest not to flinch away.

“Hey, hey, you are the juice master right?” Pidge laughed nervously. “Why don’t you sit down with me whilst I drink this so you can tell me techniques?”

“Excellent idea!” Shiro practically vibrated with excitement and plopped down on the couch.

Within a few minutes of Pidge gagging down the drink and Shiro slurring about blender settings, Shiro’s breathing evened out and he nestled into the couch cushions.

“Bed time?” Keith whispered, carefully draping a blanket around Shiro.  
“I will never be able to eat lucky charms again.” Pidge moaned but staggered towards their bedroom, leaving Keith to do the same.

As always, when they awoke six hours later, the apartment had been fully cleaned, their groceries were restocked and the fridge magnets spelt out a simple but heartfelt apology.

In all it was a small price to pay to watch Pidge turn green at the sight of the new box of lucky charms.

 

* * *

“I’m just saying it is efficient.” Shiro shrugged and continued leisurely channel surfing.

“Efficient?” Hunk yelped. “You know what else is efficient? Murder! Murder Shiro, and that’s what you’ve done to my respect for you.”

“What’s wrong with a smoothie?” Shiro hit pause aggressively and turned back to Hunk.

“Nothing! But. Those. Aren’t. Smoothies.” Hunk snarled. “That’s blasphemy to even speak about.”

“You’ll never know the joy of orange juice, beef jerky-“

Hunk screeched in horror, but Lance swore that Keith stiffened in response to Shiro’s words first before sleepily waking to Hunk tackling Shiro onto the living room floor and yelling at him.

“I’ll tear that friendship bracelet off your ankle!”

“Over my dead body Hunk!”

“Oh! Keep making those monstrosities and just try me Shiro!”

“I bet on Hunk.” Keith decided before dropping his head back to Lance’s lap.

“Why?” Lance resumed patting Keith’s head. “What about familial loyalty?”

“Shiro’s got a little more muscle than Hunk, but Hunk has far more passion.” Keith said decisively.

“Huh, I think you’re right.” Lance smiled as Hunk secured a hold on one of Shiro’s legs and narrowly avoided a wild swing from his prosthetic.  
“Napping and entertainment.” Keith chuckled. “I’m really living the life aren’t I?”

 

* * *

Lance was sulking in his tub again.  
The act itself wasn’t unusual, but for once Keith didn’t know what had caused him to inflict more water damage on their tiles.

“Can I come in?” Keith knocked on the bathroom door. He knew Lance wasn’t going to be indecent, but it felt rude not to knock.

“No.” Came the immediate reply and an angry splash.

“What did I do wrong?” Keith slumped against the door. “Can we talk it out?”

“What?” Lance shouted, which almost caused Keith to run to Red and never come back, but was thankfully delayed by Lance’s following words. “I’m not mad at you!”

“Then what is it?” Keith growled, irritated he had stressed unnecessarily.

“Argh, fuck it! Just come in.” Lance snapped, and the angry swishing of water almost persuaded Keith to pretend he had gone back to his room and didn’t hear Lance’s response.

But Keith opened the door anyway and sat on the edge of the bath with five ft. eight (plus a bit of tail height) glaring at him.

“So…”

“Take it!” Lance thrust a small black bag at Keith, immediately hiding his face in his hands and gnawing at his lip.

“Uh, what is it?” Keith replied, fingering the soft fabric and the strange object inside.

“Just open it!”

Concerned Keith opened the bag and emptied the contents into his open hand, barely processing the object and just glancing at Lance’s anxious face. It was on the third glance at the object Keith realised it was a deep red pendant attached to a leather cord.

“Do you like it?” Lance stared at his hands, avoiding eye contact desperately.

“It’s beautiful.” Keith gasped at held the necklace up to admire it. “What is it?”

“It’s a ruby.” Lance whispered shyly. “I found it a few years ago in a wreck, and I had it set into a pendant a week ago.”

“Can you put it on me?” Keith passed the necklace to Lance and knelt by the bath.

“Anything for you.” Lance smiled and carefully secured the clasp around Keith’s neck.

 

* * *

“That’s my best friend up there!” Lance bawled. “That’s my best bro!”

“I’m so proud.” Matt wailed as he clung to Shiro. “My baby sibling did it!”

On stage Hunk and Pidge accepted the trophy and cheque gleefully, Rover flying circles around the duo in excitement as the cameras flashed.

“C’mon Keith, aren't you proud of little Pidgey?” Lance sniffled.

“They’re one step closer to world domination.” Keith choked out. “Their evil robot is a miracle.”

“Oh my god.” Shiro gasped and pointed frantically at the triangular pyramid racing towards them.

“Oh shit! Keith apologise to Rover!” Matt barked, clutching at his hair as if in memory of the firework incident.

For a few seconds Rover just hovered ominously over the group, it’s compartment icon flashing and Keith mumbling half-hearted apologises to the merciless metal pyramid.

Lance screeched when Rover’s compartment had finally built up enough pressure to explode confetti all over the group, raining more multi-coloured scraps of paper than should logically fit in the tiny robot.

Goal complete, Rover beeped and returned to the grinning duo who had continued to pose with their trophy throughout the event.

“Evil robot, told you.” Keith smirked, but it quickly became a genuine smile when Pidge waved excitedly to the crowd.

 

* * *

“You need to swing your hips more!” Matt demanded.

For the millionth time in five minutes, Keith wondered how he had gotten into this situation.

For once everyone was relaxing at Shiro and Matt’s apartment, mainly for their large TV and the promise of a Star Wars marathon. However as most things do when Matt was involved, they ended up doing something else entirely.

Something else entirely was Pidge, Hunk, Lance and Shiro watch Matt try to teach Keith to dance.

“I’m stopping now!” Keith shouted over the music, but Pidge booed and Matt grabbed his hands and forced him into a messy waltz.

“Just feel the beat Keith! Let it flow through you!”

“Aren’t waltz’s in three-four? And this music is four-four?” Keith stumbled as Matt’s surprisingly strong grip kept him in place.

“It’s dubstep Keith, the beat doesn’t matter as long as you’re having fun!”

“Well I’m not!” To punctuate his statement Keith stepped on Matt’s toe, not hard enough to hurt him but enough to make a statement.

“Careful Keith, you might hurt his one feeling!” Shiro called from his perch on the kitchen counter teasingly raising the volume on the stereo.

“Now I’m going to get you laid tonight-“ Matt began.

“Please don’t.” Keith was well aware of how terrible of a wingman Matt was.

“And make Lance jealous!”

Without waiting for a response Matt shoved Keith backwards and either overestimated his strength or underestimated Keith’s height, as he caught his torso very well in a dip but let his head slam to the floor.

“Pity sex?” Matt offered sheepishly at Keith’s glare and Lance’s hysterical laughter.

 

* * *

“… Shiref’s experiment on the autokinetic effect can be used as empirical evidence for conformity, however due to there being no ‘right answer’…”

“Psst. Wake up loser.”

Pidge’s whisper snapped Keith back into wakefulness and he scribbled ‘Autokinetic’ down on his notebook in a reflex, unfortunately there was barely anything else but a few squiggles from unconscious Keith attempting to be a good student.

“Don’t worry, I’ve got it all down.” Pidge grinned as Keith squinted at the PowerPoint at the front of the hall.

“So the essay question is: ‘examine research on conformity to group norms’, and it will be due by the next lecture.”

“You coming back to the apartment now?” Keith slurred sleepily, as the students around packed their bags.

“Nah I’m meeting Matt for coffee and scamming that bitch for caramel slices.” Pidge smirked. “Besides, last time I was stuck under an umbrella with you two it was painful and you had just started dating.”

“Huh?” That definitely woke Keith up. “Lance is here?”

“He’s outside waiting for you.” Pidge pointed to the window, and sure enough a figure sheltered from the rain under a bright yellow umbrella.

“I’ll see you later!” Keith said breathlessly shoving his books into his bag.

“Hey baby-“ Keith cut Lance off with a kiss as soon as he ducked under the umbrella, smothering his words with all the affection he could muster in one gesture.

That was until Lance forgot how to properly hold an umbrella and exposed the back of Keith’s neck to the rain.

“Argh!” Keith yelped and yanked the handle towards him until he was covered completely, leaving Lance defenceless.

“Hey! Give that back you ass!” Lance frowned and balanced on one foot to kick at Keith’s knee.

“What happened to baby?” Keith countered and shifted into a defensive position, not caring he was getting wet but determined not to lose the umbrella.

The resulting power struggle over a bright yellow umbrella left them fully soaked and giggling as they attempted ridiculous skidding and spinning motions to throw the other off.

Finally Lance claimed victory with the unfair power he hid in his hips, shoving Keith across the courtyard and plucking the handle from his fingertips.

“You look like a drowned rat.” Lance chuckled before an awestruck look covered his face. “My drowned rat.”

“Still not a compliment.” Keith grumbled and pushed his way into Lance’s and the umbrella’s circle of protection.

“What about this for a compliment?” Lance smirked.

“Keith, the mere thought of you does strange things to my heart and when you smile I swear I could die from happiness.” Lance cupped Keith’s cheek with one hand.  
“I lay awake some nights just to look at you and thank the universe for gracing me with such a wonderful person in my life.”

“W-where is this coming from?” Keith blushed at the crack in his voice, embarrassed at the sincerity in Lance’s voice.

“Nowhere, I just love you so much.” Lance whispered.

It was there and then in the summer rain under a bright yellow umbrella Keith decided he wanted to echo those words back to him for the rest of his life.

And so he did.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow I'm really sorry I didn't update this for two months, the epilogue ended up being a lot longer than expected and a bunch of my deadlines were moved unexpectedly forward which seriously cut into my time. 
> 
> But holy shit. 
> 
> Thank you so much to everyone who supported me and encouraged me writing this, every kudos and comment inspired me so much and I wouldn't have finished this without everyone being so nice. 
> 
> Having said that I've read through this a bunch of times but since its been written over several weeks there's probably a heaps of typos so please point them out to me + any constructive criticism (seriously I live for that shit it helps me in the long run!!) 
> 
> Thank you so much again :) <3


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